


Feels Like Home

by Darkflower



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Consensual Kink, Consensual Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2018-11-08 22:31:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11091279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkflower/pseuds/Darkflower
Summary: He has a life damnit, which he has built around him carefully and meticulously and he is not the snotty, self-righteous teen wolf. The man that is staring back at him from the mirror – that is right, a man – looks successful, driven, charismatic even, if he stretches his imagination. And there is no need to be so nervous about it, because it is only Derek.Scott meets Derek first time after a hiatus of eight years...





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Season 6 never happens. Everything is pretty much the same. Stiles and Scott leave Beacon Hills three years after the Mexico incident.

Scott smoothens down a non-existent wrinkle in the moss green button down he is wearing and  meets his eyes in the mirror. He hopes he is looking every bit of the responsible adult that he has been pretending to be for the last three years. He has a job, a not-so-shitty apartment in San Francisco which he shares with a room-mate who has been his best friend since they were in diapers, his mother is fucking proud of him and he has a pack which is now scattered through the world, but still loyal to him enough that they would come at a drop of a hat if something goes amiss. Fortunately, there has been no need for it for the last five years of so, since Stiles and him left Beacon Hills for good.

He has a life damnit, which he has built around him carefully and meticulously and he is not the snotty, self-righteous teen wolf. The man that is staring back at him from the mirror – that is right, a man – looks successful, driven, charismatic even, if he stretches his imagination. And there is no need to be so nervous about it, because it is only Derek.

Scott’s eyes widen in panic and his breath comes in staccatos. He wants his inhaler because suddenly it is too much and he cannot breathe. He clutches at his chest in panic...God...what has he been thinking...coming back to Beacon Hills after knowing that Derek is back after eight fucking years and that he has actively sought out all the members of the pack, old and new, and has bought back the Hale land from the county and has a beautiful log cabin (‘Scott, you should see it. It looks like it’s straight out of some fairy tale,’ Malia has gushed over the phone). He really wanted to see it. He wanted to know why Derek is back after so many years of near radio silence and why he would subject himself to the blasted town when its alpha (which will be him) himself has abandoned it. Ran away to be exact, to maintain his fucking sanity, taking his best friend along with him.

Spots are dancing at the edges of his vision and he is curled into a ball on the floor when the smell hits him. Comforting and familiar and warm. Scott closes his eyes in relief as a couple of strong arms haul him off the floor and presses him into the carve of their body.

“I don’t think you should touch him when he is having...” he hears his mother’s panicked voice and he hacks out a cough again, trying to let some air into his lungs.

“It’s ok Mel.” God, since when does Derek call his mom with such familiarity? “I got him.”

And he does, back to chest, warm hands splayed on his stomach and chest. Because miraculously, Scott’s lungs resume its normal functioning and he feels safe, secure, less unmoored than he has been for the greater part of a decade, being cocooned in the warmth that held him as tenderly as when he was turned first time and the same arms had prevented him from ripping apart his girlfriend and Jackson when they were almost making out in the car. The arms that shoved him away from the danger and taking his place as Kate attacked them at the Hale house. The same strong arms had prevented him from rushing out of his hiding spot to save the omega when Gerard and his men gloated over the deadbody of the poor bastard. The same arm that carried his half-conscious, barely-breathing form through wolfsbane-stained air, saving his life for God knew how many times.

Scott hasn't realised when he has started sobbing, but all these years of missing the safety of those arms, of a presence that made itself known only by its absence, the compassion of a person too much wronged and too much humiliated and beaten and bloodied and still going strong, has him throw himself into their care again, knowing those arms will take care of him no matter what. He knows, to him, Scott is still probably the bumbling and defiant 16-year old who always gets a long-suffering sigh, but always gets his way, no matter what, is always forgiven even when he breaks the trust of a generous heart by plotting with his worst nemesis not once, but twice, but Gerard and Deucalions of the world cannot wipe away what Derek has for Scott and Scott just knows that – the unconditional love – the one that seeks no reason for its being. Otherwise why would Derek have anything to do with him after Scott desecrates his sister’s grave, treats it like some kind of joke, makes him a murder suspect twice, and tells him in his face that his family was murdered by the Argents probably because they deserved it.

Scott’s breathing hitches at the memory and Derek’s arms just tightens a fraction around him. And how did he never notice how gentle Derek is with him, like he is made of glass. Even when Derek is fighting with him, he is holding back. In the forest, during their first fight Derek rolls over after jumping over him to take the brunt of the fall. And all he did was to cause more pains to the broken man by accusing him with all sorts of things that were never true in the first place.

“Shh...quiet now...” Derek kisses the top of his head, he fucking kisses him, like he is a child and Scott squeezes his eyes shut because he does feel like such a child, being cradled against Derek’s chest like that. “You are scaring your mother.”

Scott stops crying with a last pathetic hiccup and opens his eyes. He wipes at his face and disentangles slowly from Derek. He doesn’t dare to make eye-contact with his mom who is silently hovering or Derek who smells sad for some reason.

“Hey baby...” his mom is still his mom, eye contact or no. So he lets her fuss over him as he rises to his feet slowly and she is wiping his face with a handkerchief. He doesn’t even have it in him to shove her hands away indignantly saying he is ok. He most definitely isn’t.

Derek is lurking at the corner of the room, his childhood room, something Derek is quite expert at. It never ceases to amaze Scott how the hulk of a man can be so quiet in his movement. Probably comes with the territory of being born an apex predator.

“I am fine mom.” He finally decides it is enough. He is mortified as it is. “I just...I was thinking about the past and it got...” he trails off, hoping against hope it is vague enough to pass the walking lie-detector standing behind his mom.

“If you say so.” Melissa looks over at him uncertainly.

“Mom,” Scott attempts a grin, “I am a nurse. I will know if there is something physically wrong with me.”

“Ok,” Melissa deflates, “but you should probably get a raincheck on your date.”

“Oh my God, mom, it is not a date.” Scott’s eyes involuntarily go to Derek who is trying his best to school his features into a non-amused one.

Right! He has forgotten Derek is also an asshole.

“Sure hon,” Melissa chuckles but she is looking at the discarded shirts on the bed which has obviously been tried on. “Whatever you say.”

“Mel,” Derek’s voice stops Scott from spluttering again. It is soft and gentle, matching with his look which is soft and gentle, matching with the small smile he is wearing, which is again, soft and gentle.

Two adjectives Scott would never have associated with a badass like Derek Hale, who can now turn into a full wolf and crush the skull of powerful berserkers like they are made of clay.

“Please don’t terrorize your son. He will flee from here at the first chance again, before we can tell him about our proposition,” Derek says easily like he has been interacting with his mom all these years without any hiatus.

Wait, has he?

“You?” He pointed a finger at Derek, accusing. “You have been keeping in touch with my mom.”

Derek sighs. “Yeah, I have. With Mel and John and Chris. I Skype with Parrish too.”

“But not with us.” Scott cannot keep the hurt out of his voice.

“I will leave you boys to talk it out. You guys are lucky I am in the mood for cooking and Derek you are not leaving without having dinner with us.” His mom pipes up and pats Derek on the arm. Derek, wonder of wonders, instead of flinching from the touch or growling at her, actually covers her hand with his larger one and even if he doesn’t say anything, the look in his eyes says it all.

“Did you two just had a silent communication of ‘thank you’ and ‘you are welcome?’” Scott drops down on his bed. “What the hell dude?”

“Don’t call me dude,” Derek deadpans, “and I have no idea what you are talking about.”

And just like that, they are back. Even though Derek is wearing a pink t-shirt (and damn if he isn’t rocking the colour) which is a novelty for him (though not that much, since Derek has taken to wear colours – purple, maroon and that shocking blue shirt that brought out his eyes the last time they saw each other at Mexico) Derek is still Derek, soft smile or no. Dry as a bone. Sarcastic little shit. Hard to read, but so easy to understand when you know him intimately. Big heart. Bigger capacity to love.

Love.

Scott doesn’t know why his palms are sweating as the big, brooding hulk of a man sits across him in the computer chair that barely holds his bulk.  He doesn’t know why his heart-rate is again picking up as he stares and stares as they talk about the pack, about Scott’s career choice, about how Derek has apparently been a globe-trotter and has lived with no less than five different packs including a pack of were-lions in Africa and how his experiences have humbled him, made him more at peace with himself. Scott describes the new adventures he has wrought along with Stiles who has taken up journalism and is free-lancing at one of San Francisco’s leading dailies. How Kira leaving for good shattered him from the inside and he couldn’t find it in himself to go on. How Stiles and Lydia and his mom insisted him to leave the town so that he would stop feeling so damn responsible when anything goes wrong in this blasted place. He speaks of his guilt of leaving Beacon Hills at the hands of Liam and Brett and Mason, teenagers barely able to fend for themselves, but the sheriff and Chris Argent promised him time and again he would be called back if and when he is needed. There has been no call since he has left BH. He has come back with Stiles for Christmas and Thanksgiving and the town has mercifully stayed quiet. Still, the feeling of something is off never quite goes away. He is not centered. It seems like he is outside his body, casually observing, and he is not involved. He is not quite living but waiting. For something.

He says all these and Derek listens, his face sympathetic instead of carefully blank. Scott knows if anybody can get him it is Derek. This must be what Derek felt like when he had left town with Laura to settle down in New York.

What he doesn’t say is that the first time he feels something, the remote stirring of life in his seemingly dead heart is when he hears how Derek is back in town. He continues to get random tidbits of information about how Derek is doing. How can he tell Derek without sounding pathetic that he has rushed back home at the first opportunity (arm-wrestling a well-deserved break from his boss from the pediatric hospital where he works) and how Stiles has begged to wait for two more months, for Christmas, so that both of them could come home? But Scott has been selfish and wanted this reunion to keep between him and Derek. And the first thing he did after reaching home was to get hold of Derek’s phone number from Melissa, who is now apparently a good friend and from what it looks like has always been, and send a text. It has been Derek who has replied to his lame-ass ‘Heard u r back. Wanna catch up?’ with an actual phone call which somehow finds Scott rummaging through his bag and then through his closet bemusedly for something good to wear for a dinner with a friend.

“I am back for good.” Derek is saying. “There seems to be no...well, I wouldn’t say it out loud and jinx it.”

Scott laughs at Derek, feeling light-headed. The toothy grin that crosses Derek’s feature in reply is quick and blinding in its beauty. Scott’s pulse-rate sores once more. What the hell is wrong with him?

“I have been thinking about talking to you and that idiot Stiles too if...” Derek trails off, looking uncertain.

“If what?” Scott prompts.

“If you two are ever going to come back.” Derek lets out in a rush. Then he looks mildly panicked. “I mean I know something about the circumstances when you chose to leave. I really, really wish I could have been here with you.”

“No, Derek, it was not...” Scott interrupts him quickly. “You are not allowed to feel guilty about leaving when you did. If I were you, I would have flipped my shit a long time back and the fact that you held onto your sanity so long and still tried to save everybody only showed how brave you truly are.”

Derek’s eyes have gone soft. He is still not a very expressive person, but his eyes had always been a dead giveaway, when he had been hurt, when he had been ashamed, gutted with guilt, had been completely hopeless...and to think that Scott had been the reason for those beautiful eyes being clouded over in hurt too many times.

Beautiful. Derek is beautiful. He shows no sign of ageing at all and now that he looks more carefree than before, he looks closer to twenty-five than bordering on thirty-two. Scott helplessly takes in the raven hair, the razor-sharp cheekbones, the patrician nose, the rose-bud mouth, the artful stubble, the inky eyebrows and the eyes, framed with long, almost girly lashes and that perfection of a body...he is so fucking beautiful that Scott’s eyes sting.

“Seriously! You are not allowed.” He repeats, feeling like he is under a spell, because where the hell does this come from. Since when is he reduced to a stuttering mess in front of Derek Hale like a lovelorn schoolgirl? He is not Stiles and this is just Derek.

Just Derek, who is now ducking his head, pink blush blooming high on his cheekbones.

“Okay.” He says and looks up through his lashes.

God, he doesn’t even have to try. Scott almost feels he is going boneless where he sits, melting into a poodle and Derek is not even touching him. He is sitting across him with a serious expression on his face.

“But I am serious too, Scott.” He says with earnest eyes. “I know you two have not been exactly happy over there. Well, happy may be a relative term, but Malia, John and Mel all are concerned about you two. You guys are...I mean you never mention a date or going out with other friends...I mean you must have friends since you have built a life for yourself out there, but the two of you.” Derek shakes his head, frustrated. “It seems like you are lonely.”

Scott distantly feels like he should be angry. He is a grown-ass man and people should not meddle, especially people who disappear for eight years but still keeps in touch with the parents like he is not adult enough to handle...

“Scott, I am sorry that I never called any of you. But you must understand, the contact I kept with Mel and John were strictly on the necessity basis.” Derek speaks out as if he can read his mind. “I needed the break after everything that happened.”

“Did you ever plan to come back?” Scott cannot help asking.

“I tried to come back a couple of times, but I was detained. I was...I was helping people for a change.” Derek looked at him with pleading eyes. “The packs I had been living with, I taught them stuff, about control, battle strategy, about other supernatural creatures. I actually made a difference and it felt good. It was kind of addictive to be suddenly adored by a bunch of strangers because you happen to be able to turn their infant children back to their human forms after getting trapped into the wolf form for weeks. It was a new thing to be looked up to when I took out a witch that had killed the mate of the alpha of the were-lion pack.”

“Holy shit, Derek!”

Derek nodded his head, absently. “The witch used compulsion on the lions whenever they tried to trap her and she...she actually had the alpha made love to her instead of ripping her throat out...but I saw through her magic, because I remembered Jennifer. I took precaution and I was able to kill the raving, lunatic bitch who reminded me of Kate. They even had the same hair colour.”

Stiles had told him about Kate and Derek one day after they were both so drunk on wolfsbane-laced whiskey that they couldn’t even move. Scott didn’t know how Stiles knew, but so many things about Derek became crystal clear in an instant – especially his insistence on Scott staying away from Allison. And all because Derek loved him so and could risk the wrath of hunters and bite one formidable Victoria Argent without a second thought – because Derek loved him. Derek loves him. Derek went to rescue Scott when he was powerless and human and a banshee had predicted his death because Derek loves him.

Scott flings himself across the room and suddenly Derek has a lapful of Scott, who is thankfully a couple of inches shorter and smaller in frame than him and though Derek is confused, he doesn’t waste a second to wrap his arms around the beautiful, kind-hearted boy, the one who burnt in his memory like a torch as he travels through nations, never meeting someone like him.

Scott buries his face in Derek’s shoulder and no this is not awkward at all.

These arms around him, the restrained strength in them, the hard chest, the soft hair behind the surprisingly delicate earlobe, the warm and musky smell of pure Derek...this feels right.

This feels like home.

Scott closes his eyes and lets himself savour it for the time being without questioning it. 


	2. Chapter 2

It takes three pack meetings, two dinner invitation which Scott dodges with creative excuses (with a little help from Stiles), a couple of surprise meetings at odd places like supermarket and Beacon Hills Hospital that Scott finally breaks.

“I can’t do this anymore.” He declares, shoving back a plate-full of eggs.

“What? Scrambled eggs?” Melissa asks, puzzled. “But you always liked them this way.”

“Not eggs.” Scott scrubs his face with both hands. He doesn’t want to be that boy that goes crying to him mom about every crisis in his life, but he and his mom had come to an agreement about talking to each other whenever something bothered them a long time back. His mom really deserved it after he kept so many secrets from her with a disastrous result.

“What’s wrong hon?” Melissa places a hand on his arm. “You seem stressed ever since you have come back. If you think moving back is not a good idea then it is fine by me. You can choose whatever you do with your life Scott. Nobody will blame you for it.”

“No mom. It’s not that.” Scott heaves a sigh. If there is one thing that he has done right is being back at Beacon Hills and see the old, familiar faces still around and to be among him pack again and to be able to let the chips fall where they may. He has even applied for a position at Beacon Hills Hospital and he is almost 100% sure he is going to be accepted. Stiles, after initially arguing for argument’s sake because he is a shithead like that, has finally deflated and decided to come back too. Hell, the both of them shouldn’t be so eager to move into their hometown. They are grown-up people who should enjoy being far away from this little blip on earth where every other exciting thing is the one that usually tries to kill them. But what is there to be done. They have tried to live it up in the brave new world and it actually sucks. Maybe they are wired this way, but being back in the shitty town actually makes them breathe easier.

Or is it because of a certain presence who has single-handedly taken over the alpha mantle without having scarlet eyes, imparting the wisdom of one after learning so much from shape-shifters all around the world. The fact that Derek actually speaks seventeen languages (a fact Scott has come to know only now) coming in handy during his travel.

Or what Derek is doing is probably not alpha-ing in the strictest sense. He is gathering the supernatural teens, most of whom are no longer teens, and individuals like Parish, having a pack-meet every Friday evening AND he has brought all the parents into the fold. He has learnt some rudimentary spells which he has applied with gusto while setting up some wards around the town to alert them of any intruders.

“Is it about Derek?” Melissa asks with the kind of intuition that only moms possess.

Scott’s head whips up. “How do you know?” He splutters.

“Because of the way you have taken to look at him.” Melissa looks over the rim of coffee mug, tone completely neutral.

“Mom!”

“The thing is, it’s the same way Derek always looks at you, like you hung the moon, but only when you are not looking.” She smiles at some memory. “He has the same look when he talks about you too. I didn’t quite get it until I saw a similar expression in your face. Only then it clicked and I didn’t know how I could miss something so obvious.”

“Mom...” Scott doesn’t yell but it is a near thing. “He called me his brother.”

“But you have never been his brother. You probably reminded him of one. He mentioned once he had cousins of your age, with the emphasis on 'had.'" Melissa pins Scott with a piercing gaze. "He called you brother probably because the grief was still so close to the surface and he really saw the shadow of his younger brother in you, at least initially.” Melissa says thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t know because I didn’t know him back then. But you two...you were anything but brotherly, what with the way you two always butted heads like you cannot help riling up each other like you featured in some great romantic comedy.”

“How do you even know all these?”

“Well, Lydia and I got close after you guys skipped town and you know how girls love to gossip.”

“But mom...there is...I don’t even know why...it's insane to think about Derek and I this way now.”

“Which means you have thought about it at one point of time?”

Scott clams up at that. He did, one time very early in their relationship when Derek had suddenly squeezed his shoulder affectionately while visiting the Lahey house after Isaac got arrested. In the murky light of the basement, Derek’s breathing was hot on his neck and his scent was...God it was just so mouth-wateringly good...and the way Derek spoke to him in a tone half-exasperated, half-fond how sniffing people on the lacrosse field was not an acceptable behaviour...and his jeans were suddenly too tight and he was feeling suffocated, in a good way. He didn’t want Derek to remove his hand, but to shove him against the wall and to keep on touching and to...

But he was not gay, not even a bi-sexual as Stiles. He was just a hormonal teenager on a hair-trigger. It was not Derek. He would never feel like that about Derek who always infuriated him one way or the other. Derek was just this self-sacrificing asshole who would keep secrets from him and it hurt. And he was in love damnit. He was in love with Allison and Derek was such a jerk about it, though now Scott understands Derek’s motive and a part of him is soothed that Derek cared quite that much about him. He was in love and Derek was an obstacle who would just stare at him with his stupid, big eyes like a dumb animal which didn’t understand where he went wrong or what he did wrong when Scott just lashed out at him for things that were or were not his fault and Scott would...

Fuck!

“Mom...” he whined dropping his head into the folded arms.

“I know baby.” Melissa chuckles. “Stranger things have happened.”

“But,” Scott looks up. “What if I am reading it wrong?”

“You need to stop avoiding him to actually figure it out how much you are wrong though. Don’t you think?”

Scott heaves another sigh and rises to his feet. He is a man, not a teenager now. He needs answer. He cannot be a coward and hide in his room anymore, finding excuses not to see a certain dark-haired man who smiles at him in a way that makes him shiver.

This thing is new. Then why shouldn’t it feel so new. At all!

“I think he is still working on the greenhouse he said he would put up behind his cabin.” Melissa calls out from as he is about to step out of the house. He doesn’t even know how his mom knows so much about the daily routine of a broody werewolf. Another mom-thing, he guesses.

He takes a deep breath and takes out his trusty bike.

He kind of feels like a kid again, going off to poke at a dangerous forest animal and see how it goes.

He just hopes he can meet Derek’s eyes after he is thoroughly put to his place by the older wolf.


	3. Chapter 3

There is a stillness to the forest, Scott wonders why, because it is daytime and it shouldn’t be this quiet. He can hear Derek’s heartbeat even before he makes it to the clearing in front of the newly constructed Hale house.

Malia was right!

The medium size cabin looks straight out of the glossy pages of a lifestyle magazine. Scott climbs up the porch steps and lets his fingers trail down the wooden railing reverently. Derek built this, painstakingly, with bare hands. A shiver runs down Scott’s spine thinking about the strength and single-minded determination to build something so exquisite.

The door opens suddenly, startling Scott into taking a step back.

Derek is standing in the doorway in a dirty vest which could have been white at one point of time and blue jeans. His hair is without any product, completely, endearingly disheveled and damp, inky curls falling on the alabaster forehead in abundance. There are smudges of dirt on his face and there is a smile.

Scott suppresses the urge to shield his eyes because Derek’s beauty is otherworldly and blinding.

“You came.” Derek’s smile, miraculously, still holds, making home in the crinkles beside his eyes and the lines around his mouth. The stupid man even has dimples for crying out loud. “I thought you would find another excuse or something.”

“Sorry.” Scott scratches the back of his head, trying to figure out how to look at Derek without giving away the hearts in his eyes because, damn!

“Come on in.” Derek ushers him inside and Scott follows him helplessly, feeling like a lost duckling.

The inside of the cottage is even simpler and clutter-free with a few pieces of homely furniture. There is a huge, comfy sofa, a couple of armchairs, a beautifully polished coffee table and an open kitchen running along the far side of the room with a state-of-the-art coffee machine on the counter-top. There is a distinct lack of TV, but there is a hanging book-shelf which Scott is sure Derek has assembled himself containing lots of old, dog-eared books. There is a staircase at the back, leading to the attic probably, reminding Scott of the spiral staircase of the loft.

Scott takes everything in, nearly pets the sofa before plonking into is as Derek draws an armchair to sit face to face.

“This is...” Scott gestures around, “kind of like...I didn’t know something like this can exist out of a book.”

“This is just a log cabin Scott.” Derek rolls his eyes, predictably.

“No,” Scott shakes his head vehemently. “This is...this is something else. This is you, Derek, completely you. You healing, you coming back and facing your nightmares, you building something in this blasted town which gave you nothing but grief. This is not just a house. This is a statement if I have ever seen one.”

Derek studies him with serious eyes. “Wow.” He says after a beat. “You have found your way with words.”

“Well, I have grown up.” Scott replies smugly.

Derek’s eyes crinkle up at the corners again.

“Yes, you have.”

Scott feels like squirming because he has forgotten how intense Derek can be and how it feels like to be subjected to the soul-baring stare of those multi-coloured eyes. He is acutely aware how alone they are almost in the middle of nowhere. Scott doesn’t know if he can define the way he feels too tight in his skin, too uncomfortable. Derek is certainly not a threat and Scott has stopped being afraid of Derek a long time back. And now it is out of question to be scared because this is Derek, who will put himself bodily between Scott and an incoming danger if there is any. Scott knows this. But he cannot help the way his heart is jack-rabbitting. Derek can surely hear it, but he gives no indication, not even a quirk of eyebrow. Derek is sitting there, serenely, studying Scott without judgement.

Scott has forgotten Derek is usually not the one who likes to break the silence.

He clears his throat and Derek jerks, catches himself and frowns, the little ‘v’ appearing between his dark eyebrows making him look like the old Derek again.

“I guess I should thank you.” Scott supplies, wanting desperately to fill the silence with mindless chatter. How he wishes now for Stiles to be here. “You are doing a good thing...with the pack.” Scott cringes at how patronising he must sound and there goes Derek’s eyebrow. Finally.

But he doesn’t lash back with a sarcastic reply. He just smiles (he is doing that a lot nowadays) and shrugs. “I am not the alpha replacement Scott. I just want my home to be safe. God knows it is better to be ready for anything. This is still Beacon Hills.”

“Let me thank you dude. I am the resident alpha, or at least I used to be.”

Derek sighs. “Scott, I told you how the Hales have always been a protector of this land. It is on me that I couldn’t take it anymore and the second time Kate kidnapped me it just became too much.”

“So, you just stayed back to help me with the deadpool then?”

“A banshee had predicted my death Scott.” Derek shakes his head. “Where do you think I would have gone? I had nowhere to run. I didn’t want to run. And yes, I wanted to help you.”

“But then you left.” Scott’s tone is accusatory in spite of himself. “And I was...it was...it was awful.” It is immaterial that the last time they talked Scott had ordered Derek not to feel guilty about leaving. The hurt in his chest is suddenly a widening chasm–years and years of longing to hear the sound of that one voice that was never there. Scott suddenly realises, now that Derek is sitting in flesh before him, just how much he missed him and it is like a punch to the gut.

Derek’s lashes are lowered to the ground and his hands are clasped together between his knees, not in supplication because Derek is still Derek and is not much one for apologising, especially for something he has nothing to apologise for. He just seems to be deep in thought.

Scott wants to go back to the way they have been talking the first evening they met at Scott’s house after Derek held him in his arms through a panic attack. But something is off and they are fumbling around, Scott realises. In Derek’s case it is less noticeable because Derek never fumbles. Even in the face of death, he remains defiantly stoic.

“When I left,” Derek begins slowly, without lifting his eyes, “I didn’t know if I was coming back or not. I was half sure I wouldn’t. But the further I went, the clearer it became I belong here, on this piece of earth where my family’s bones are buried deep. I belong here because my memories would draw me to this place invariably. I am...”

Derek looks up and away, staring at nothing.

“I told you the truth that day.” He says. “I am back for good.”

And then Derek looks at him almost challengingly. As if Scott would tell him ‘fuck, no, you cannot waltz back into our lives after we have barely mastered the art of how not to miss Derek Hale’ because of course Derek takes Scott’s silence personally. It is like Scott hasn’t shifted his whole life around the axis called Derek Hale when the man chooses to come back. What is with that even? Derek is just this weird thing that is more than a friend, less than a family, and there has always been this touch and go with Derek. Flashes fly past Scott’s eyes of Derek lifting Ennis off him in the hospital elevator, Derek taking on the brunt of Jennifer’s wrath as she tears through him when Scott stands weakened and human, Derek shoving the bulky hunter with his gun pressed against Scott’s temple away from him when he is soaked to the skin with gasoline, Derek getting between him and the berserkers to shield him bodily, Derek saving his life in a thousand little ways – and Derek is looking at him like he almost expects Scott to flash his alpha eyes at him and tell him to leave. And Scott knows Derek will flash his eyes right back, never backing down a single millimeter. It was Derek who first told him how he was an alpha even though his eyes were not red. Scott knows now how he did it, because he can see it in Derek...that Derek is that remarkable omega who is an alpha in his own rights, by his own strength, in the rigid self-containment that Derek exudes and the subtle aura of power that vibrates beneath his human skin. He is that remarkable omega who doesn't need a pack to hold onto his sanity, because it is so deeply embedded into his personality to protect the innocent, not unlike a hunter's code that Allison believed in, that Derek is almost a unit in himself.

Still an omega, because Derek is not pack. He is something. But he is not quite pack.

Scott is half sure his mom would probably kill him if he talks about Derek this way though. It is a mystery how Derek has wormed his way into the hearts of the all three parent figures in Scott’s life.

“Scott,” Derek calls him, his names sounds foreign in Derek’s tongue because it is mellowed now. Mellow like Derek’s smile when they waited together at the hospital when Stiles was possessed. Scott had wondered briefly even amidst the all-round chaos how perfect Derek was. Not physically, God, the 17-year old Scott would probably have punched him in the face for the mere suggestion, but the way Derek carried himself. Scott finally saw Derek. His compulsion to protect, his hero-complex, the length he would go to save innocent people from dying, the length he would go for all of them, Stiles included.

“You are not worried about my coming home and taking over your pack.” Derek cocks his head, making it a simple statement. “So, why do you smell anxious?”

Scott bites his lip.

Because somehow during your absence I have obsessed over you, poring over our each and every interaction and regretting a majority of it and getting to know you over and over again while remembering something you said and analysing it in my head.

Because my head went round in loops coming back to one fucking point when I first saw you standing like a rock, but silent as a shadow, accusing me of trespassing and you returned my inhaler to me.

Because I trespassed more than I could ever hope to seek forgiveness for.

Because in the span of eight years, between waiting for you to call and wishing I could do it all over again, I developed a fucking crush over you and now I just want to bang my head against the pristine granite counter top and die!

“Because it doesn’t feel real.” Scott closes his eyes, distressed. “You are here, but it doesn’t feel real. I think I will wake up and find myself back in school with Stiles killing a wendigo and Theo Raeken resurrecting the chimeras and...and I am dying in the library again.”

“You what?” Derek is staring flatly at him. He is angry, Scot can see it rolling off him, and that gives him pause.

Then Derek is suddenly on his knees in front of him and he is tugging him and pulling him and manhandling him until Scott is tucked into his chest securely. Derek smells of freshly scooped earth and Derekness. Scott bites back a whimper.

“I am here.” Derek holds him fiercely, his arms squeezing the stuffing out of him and Scott’s face is mushed into Derek’s neck. “I am not going anywhere. Never. Ok?”

Scott nods into Derek’s shoulder, trying not to cry. It must be belated affects of PTSD or else why he would want to cry at the drop of a hat nowadays? Why would such a thing like a simple hug from Derek would bring tears to his eyes? He knows Derek has always loved him. Derek did show it in his own unique ways, though he never resorted to suffocate him to death before. But Scott gets it, Derek has changed, or more accurately, Derek has found himself, piece by piece, has put himself back together to what he used to be–before Erica and Boyd, before Laura, before fire...probably before Paige...or maybe not. Because Derek mourns Paige with his every breath even as he mourns his family.

Scott wraps his arms around Derek and lets the older wolf support him. Derek has it in him to support him, has always been willing to be his rock, only if Scott would let him. He is ready to let him now, but Derek has taken to look at him like Scott has grown up and is his equal and Derek exudes only admiration and wonder. Scott doesn't want that. He wants to be that boy again who got screamed at by Derek for being sixteen and a child and stupid in love.

He wants to be that boy so much. The one Derek desperately wanted to protect and hide from the entire world. To keep just for himself.

“Are you ok?” Derek whispers, voice laced with concern. “Is there something I can do? Other than promising to stay? I will do it as many times as you need it, until you start believing me.”

I love you–Scott thinks.

Don’t let me go–Scott thinks.

“You can start with a cup of coffee,” Scott mumbles. “That is a fancy-ass machine if I’ve ever seen one.”

Derek laughs releasing Scott after a brotherly pat on his forearms. Scott knows intimately how heartbreak sounds like. He has gone through it once or twice. It hurts.

Every. Fucking. Time.

“Ok,” Derek concedes easily. “Even better, I am going to make you some lunch.”

“I don’t want to eat thumper.” Scott crosses his arm.

“Scott, I don’t gambol around the forest killing rabbits. I actually like to hunt at a supermarket.”

“Stiles has this theory...”

“Well, Stiles is an idiot.”

“I object. Stiles is a very sharp human being who is almost as brainy as Lydia.”

“Still, an idiot.”

“Hey that is my best friend you are talking about.”

“Yeah. It always made me wonder how you two survived through life.”

“What does that mean...dude, is that artichokes? Do you know how to cook artichokes?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Stiles thinks the only green stuff you eat is lettuce.”

“Green stuff!”

“Because you have sort of...kind of...a pair of...”

“Tell me I have bunny teeth and I will rip your intestines and strangle you with it.”

“Careful with those knives...whoa...damn you actually know how to use them and no, you won’t.”

“I may poison you to death.”

“Why, has your glare lost its effect that you need to use poison?”

“And you are a responsible adult with a job!”

“What does that got to do with anything?”

...

The forest is quiet around the house and the air hums as they listen to the two bickering, before yawning and going to sleep, purring in contentment.

A few miles away, a mother smiles down at her phone.

 

_At Derek’s. Will be late. Probably. Don’t wait up._


	4. Chapter 4

“Dude...”

“And we even get separate bathrooms. Here, let me show you.”

“Yeah, but...”

“There is a doughnut shop coming up right across the street, did I mention? Imagine fresh doughnuts for breakfast everyday!”

“Um...”

“And the garage is just around the corner and so you don’t have to go far whenever Roscoe breaks down. Well, I don’t mean any disrespect, but Stiles I think it is time you retire the poor car.”

“Scott...”

“The kitchen comes with a built in hob, see. It is not even that old. It actually lights up instead of trying to set _us_ on fire like the one we used to have in our apartment...well, not ours any more, but...yeah, what was I saying? Yes, the hob!”

"The hob." Stiles nods sagely at the said hob and shoves his hands deep into his pocket so that he doesn't do anything drastic. Scott is looking kind of fragile. It is probably all in his mind because he still cannot wipe out the memory of the the sick pallor and wheezing breath of his alpha werewolf of a best friend as the latter freaks out in the middle of a Skype call thinking about all the ways he can screw up at his new job at the pediatric department in Beacon Hills Hospital. Melissa actually had to shove an inhaler into his mouth to stop him from choking on air.

Still, he can only take so much. This is his best friend, his brother and he will fight dirty for him.

“So,” Scott spins round to face Stiles who is now studying him quizzically. “What do you think?” He beams.

“About what?” Stiles cannot keep down the retort this time. “This apartment or how you suddenly cannot function without him lurking around your general vicinity.” He hooks his thumb over the shoulder to point at the person who has been leaning against the doorframe all the while, looking casually devastating in a white t-shirt and dark jeans.

The man in question doesn’t even bother with a middle finger at Stiles’ direction. He simply pushes the aviator down his nose and gives Stiles a look from above its golden rim – silently judging him.

“What?” Scott asks intelligently.

 Stiles thinks he will be pretty justified if he tries to strangle his best friend right now.

“What?” Scott asks again, taking a hesitant step towards Stiles who is looking more and more belligerent every moment.

“See, I get it that he has got a badass car.” He glares in Derek’s direction. “Again. And so I can forgive you for picking me up from the airport in it. And I kind of missed the jerkface, though I can’t imagine why...but then you had to invite him over to the lunch and make him stay for dinner and then suddenly it is too late for him to leave. When the hell has it become too late for Derek Hale to prowl into the streets of Beacon Hills?” Stiles practically screeches.

Derek and Scott take a step towards Stiles with an identical expression of concern which of course drives Stiles even madder, if possible.

“Then you had to call Derek for Christmas shopping. Fucking Christmas shopping Scott and to choose a damn tree which we have been doing together for years. It is damn near tradition and then and then...you are showing me around the apartment that _you and I_ are going to share and here also you need to drag his sorry ass like you have imprinted on him or something or...”

Suddenly, Stiles’ expression morphs into panic. “Is it a spell? Have you two been cursed, like the two of you must be under the same roof twenty four by seven or else? What are you not telling me?”

Scott sees how Derek’s hand reaches out to touch the back of Stiles head and he knows instinctively it may result in bloodshed. Derek’s blood, he amends mentally. So, he just pulls Stiles forward so that Derek’s new-found confidence about touching or being touched, about comforting others and letting himself be comforted in turn doesn’t die a hero’s death too soon. Scott has been enjoying the relatively carefree Derek and Stiles is, if nothing, impulsive. His brain to mouth filter doesn’t work at the best of times. So Scott just wraps around his friend like a demented octopus and uses his own steady heartbeat calm him down.

“We are OK Stiles. Shh...we are safe. There is no curse. There is no danger. There hasn’t been a supernatural emergency in Beacon Hills since we left. We are at peace.”

Stiles burrows into Scott’s neck hunching down, because he is taller than Scott and he clings back, gripping Scott’s sides with a bruising intensity. Over his shoulder Scott locks his eyes with Derek who mouths ‘I will wait in the car’ and quietly leaves.

“I am sorry.” Stiles mumbles, voice slightly muffled against Scott’s shirt. “He is gone, isn’t it? Slunk away to brood in his batcave?”

“Stiles.” Scott chides gently.

“Sorry.” Stiles pulls away abruptly. He refuses to meet Scott’s eyes. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s OK Stiles.” Scott smiles at him though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You are not used to me and Derek being close. It is a not even a recent development. You know we have been close since–” Scott stops abruptly, looking guilty.

“Since nogitsune.” Stiles sighs. “Yeah, probably. We just never noticed because we were chased by one nightmare after the other. But I can see now, the possibility of an epic bromanship. Hell, the man’s last order to us when he was _dying_ was to go and save you.”

Scott cannot hold back the shudder. When he opens his eyes, his best friend is staring at him and it is like he is seeing something which is not supposed to be there. Scott slams down the urge to run away and hide. He knows what Stiles is seeing. Stiles is perceptive that way. And Scott is...well, he is not exactly ashamed, but he doesn't know what to feel. Everything is new and so tantalisingly gentle at this point. Everything is so good and falling into place. His new job at the hospital, his renewing his friendship with the young pack which has grown up so much...Stiles finally leaving San Francisco for good and following him home.

Home!

It is on the tip of his tongue, but still a whisker away. Always. Teasing him mercilessly with a tinkling laughter. He is home, but he hasn't reached there yet. Scott doesn't even know what it means or he knows too much in the twinkling of Melissa's eyes when Derek comes to his house without any occasion and Melissa slaps his arm and complaints he doesn't visit often enough, Derek smiling down at the floor, pleased and quietly content. When Chris Argent discovers them grocery-shopping together for a pack-night at Derek's house and squeezes Derek's arm and hugs Scott and Derek greets Chris like an old comrade-in-arms and rolls his eyes dramatically when both of them gang up on Derek on the fact that he only buys unnaturally expensive organic stuff and never lets Scott sneak in a single snack item that may have saturated fat. Scott watches as Derek drops into sheriff's office and the man just points towards Parrish's desk without looking up from the file he is examining. He watches as the older wolf claps Parrish on the back and leans down casually over his shoulder to peer into his computer when Parrish shows him the photos from a crime scene from a town adjacent to Beacon Hills. Scott holds his breath when Derek turns his head slightly and his lips are a centimeter away from Parrish's cheek and he wonders. Then, he shakes his head because this is Derek and this is Parrish and last he knew, neither of them were gay...and that word tips him over the edge.

Scott has his third panic attack in a span of two weeks and Derek follows him like a shadow after that. He strongly suspects Derek may have been sleeping on the roof of his house and Melissa knows it and the only reason she doesn't drag Derek by the ear and make him sleep in the guest room is that she knows Derek is still Derek. It is still hard for him sometime to let it show outright that he cares.

“You care for him.” Stiles cocks his head. Scott startles. “I mean," Stiles goes on in a gentler tone, “you have always cared for him. You are the mother hen to rival all mother hens of the history of mother hens, but this is different. This is personal. This is not like I-want-to-save-everybody-even-though-I-don’t-know-his-name Scott caring. This is something else.”

“Stiles,” Scott rubs his face with one hand.

“I should have known when you couldn’t stop talking about Derek of all people over the phone, but I didn’t realise it is this bad.”

“Stiles,” Scott grabs his arms again to stop him from rambling. “I am not replacing my best friend.”

Stiles looks at him with wounded eyes. “Aren’t you? Because it is suddenly Derek this and Derek that and Derek built this amazing house and Derek is a secret nerd and Derek makes amazing coffee and Derek is wearing sweaters instead of leather jackets and Derek has been to Kilimanjaro...”

Scott sucks in a breath. “No.”

“No?” Stiles’ eyebrows shoots up in challenge.

Scott looks Stiles square in the eye. “Derek is an amazing person and I am privileged to get to know him when he has chosen to open up more, to share more and to be ready to let people in. I happen to be one of those people and I am grateful. But _you_ are my best friend. You must believe me or help me God.”

“What will you do?” Stiles asks, smirking slightly in a long time. “Spank me alpha o alpha?”

“One word: ewww!” Scott shoves Stiles and Stiles shoves him back.

“What _eww_? I am not the one into hot BDSM sex.” Stiles waggles his eyebrows as a little more of the tension dissolves. "I can't imagine you turned out to be a deviant sexy player while I remain in the realm of plain ol' vanilla!"

“Stiles!” Scott feels his face blazing as he steps outside the apartment with Stiles in tow. “You promised never to mention that. Ever.”

“Well, you gave me a scare and I give you an embarrassment.”

Scott gives Stiles another shove, but Stiles ducks, laughing. “I am sure that sentence made sense in your head.” He rushes down the stairs before Scott can cuff him on the head.

“Stiles.” Scott stops Stiles before they shove open the front door with a hand on his chest. Stiles can see Derek through the stained glass, sitting in his stupid muscle car, already idling on the curb. The fucker can probably hear their heartbeat and so he doesn’t see why Scott bothers. “It is not like...he has changed. Well, that is not true. He is essentially the same, but he has learnt to let his guard down, OK? So, just...be careful?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Stiles says irritably and shoves past Scott, cheerily sliding into the front passenger seat before Scott had a chance.

“So, sourwolf.” He turns and Derke raises a single eyebrow at him, face inscrutable as ever behind the sunglasses. Stiles gulps. The man looks as magazine-perfect as ever he thinks bitterly. “Now that I have my meltdown over my best friend dumping me for a walking-talking mannequin with an occasional hero complex, let us start over.”

He extends his hand. “Hi, I am Stiles. And you are?”

Derek stares at him for a long moment before breaking into a grin.

Stiles gawks, for there is simply no other word for it.

Then, Derek abruptly reaches out and ruffles Stiles’ hair.

“I missed you too Stiles.” Derek says. 

Stiles may have meeped though he will deny it until he is in his grave. His head swings back to gawk at Scott who beams back at him.

“He does that.” He nods, sounding helpless. “This thing. Not the ruffling of hair. But this thing with...you see.”

Derek is still smiling quietly when he peels off the sidewalk and at least he still drives like a maniac just like before. Stiles sinks down into the pristine leather seat and stares in front. His face has gone impossibly soft, Scott notices, but he doesn’t comment on it.

“Yeah, I see it now.” Stiles mutters under the breath, but he knows both the wolves can hear it.


	5. Chapter 5

Scott has taken out Roshni’s wheelchair for a spin in the sprawling campus of Beacon Hills Memorial when Derek finds him. It has been around one week since Scott last saw Derek after the older man dropped him and Stiles to Melissa's where the two boys had been staying until they moved into their new apartment. It has been unsettling for Scott to suddenly miss seeing Derek nearly everyday. It is probably not fair on the man because Derek is his own person and he may have other, more important business to attend to and his life certainly doesn’t revolve around Scott’s. Also, there may be a possibility he is giving a wide berth to Scott so that the latter could make it up to Stiles who had a mini meltdown thinking Scott is replacing his best friend with Derek. Scott doesn’t snort at the idea because he knows where Stiles’ insecurities come from and he knows he is the one to blame. He at least, for a time being, conveniently forgot about Stiles' existence when he had fallen head over heels with Allison. The thought of Allison still sends Scott in a tailspin of grief and longing, but he is man enough to own up to his mistake of being a shitty friend. With Derek, Stiles is probably seeing the history being repeated though the idea is utterly ridiculous.

Scott is aware of all these, but still, Scott wishes Derek is less considerate of the feeling of his best friend and makes an appearance soon.

Finally, when he does, Scott feels himself completely tongue-tied.

“Hey,” Derek greets him, hands shoved deep into the pockets of one of his patented leather jackets. At least they are shiny and new and subtly giving off the hint of being designer instead of being crusted with blood.

“Hi.” It is Roshni who waves back at him while Scott simply stares at Derek like a complete idiot. “I am Roshni Sharma. Are you Scott’s friend?”

Derek stares the kid down and then he abruptly crouches in front of her which puts him at her eye-level. Then, to Scott’s utter shock he thrusts his hand out for Roshni who shakes it shyly. The movement of her wrist is restricted, but she can bend her elbows at least.

“I am.” Derek says with conviction, not even bothering to glance towards Scott’s direction for an affirmation. “And it is very nice to meet you Roshni. The name is Hale. Derek Hale.”

Roshni giggles.

“You are very handsome Mr. Hale. Are you sure it is not Bond? James Bond? Though you don’t have an English accent. But who needs an English accent. It is stupid. Anyway, Scott was telling me about his High School adventures. It is so hilarious. I think it should make a comic book on its own. Did you know him back then? Was he really that much of an idiot? Wait, he was a dork wasn’t he?”

Above them, Scott splutters. “Roshni!”

“I did and he was.” Derek smiles at Roshni. “He still kind of is.”

“Hey!”

“But he is an adorable dork, isn’t he?” Roshni continues blithely and Scott is sure his face is on fire by now.

“He is.” Derek agrees easily. “He is the most adorable dork in the whole wide world.”

Scott kind of chokes and both Derek and Roshni completely ignore him in favour of more conspirational tête-à-tête.

“You should have brought flowers.” Roshni stage-whispers. “He likes white daisies and Lilies. And he likes white chocolate.”

“Roshni...it is not...we are not...” Scott knows for a fact that he has lost control over the entire situation.

“What? He is not the Derek you have been mooning over the entire time I have been here?”

Scott regrets all his life choices, especially the ones which have led him to prattle to precocious eleven-year olds who doesn’t like bed-side stories, but would only settle down when Scott would talk to him like he would talk with a friend reminiscing his younger days, telling him about his friends, family, people in between his friend and family...like Derek.

He is so pathetic!

Derek’s eyebrow arches, but thankfully he doesn’t even lift his head to level a funny look towards Scott. Sometimes Scott finds Derek’s unflappable nature irritating, but this is not one of those times.

“I have not been mooning over Derek.” He still cannot help grumbling under his breath and from the curious look on Derek’s face, he is not helping the situation at all.

“Whatever you say.” Roshni sounds awfully patronising.

God, kids these days!

“I will remember the flowers next time.” Derek grins at Roshni. “And I will probably steal a few comic books for you too if that is something you are into.”

“Marvel. Not DC.” Roshni promptly demands.

“What’s wrong with Marvel?” Derek frowns at him.

“Don’t enable him.” Scott warns while Derek straightens up. “We will argue until the apocalypse. I really wish she never meets Stiles.”

“Stiles? Your super cool best friend?” Roshni prompts.

“Did I tell you every little detail of my life?” Scott groans, pushing the wheelchair down the corridor.

“You did.” Roshni says gleefully. “To an invalid 11-year old. You really are a loser and you are welcome.”

Derek is walking by his side, but Scott can see from the way his shoulders are shaking and he hand is fisted in front of his mouth that he is trying hard not to double up in laughter.

“You are the worst and I am not going to take you anywhere tomorrow. Story sessions are over.” Scott declares shoving the wheelchair into the paediatric word.

“We will see.” Roshni says in a clearly disbelieving voice. “Bye Derek,” She waves. “You should drop by sometime. I bet the nurses will love the change of scene. I sure will.”

Derek waves back, smiling, completely unperturbed that he is being flirted with by a kid. “See you around Roshni.”

Scott scowls at the girl as he helps her settle into the bed. “You are a menace and I hope you know that.”

“I know.” Roshni says, sounding smug. “Now go and catch up with your boyfriend. And you are welcome again.”

Scott doesn't even deign to give a reply to that but he leaves the ward in search of Derek who appears to be busy talking to Melissa at the reception area.

“...any injury caused by near fatal accident. I will tell you first thing if I find anything.” He hears his mom saying.

“Derek,” Scott calls out unnecessarily because Derek must have already heard him. “Is there something wrong?”

“I came to see your mom actually.” Derek replies. “She told me you were on a lunch break.”

“I am, but I like to take Roshni outside for a bit. The kid is getting restless being confined to her cabin all the time.”

“What happened to Roshni?” Derek asks and the concern and sadness in his face is so real that it suddenly dawns upon Scott that Derek is a compassionate person by nature. Even when he used violent as an answer to everything, he never willfully hurt anybody emotionally. He chose to offer his bite to the kids who were suffering through their lives with no prospect to get better. Jackson the douche was not his choice at all and to think of that, it was actually Scott who was his first choice. He feels a pang of regret suddenly. Was he wrong about Derek all along? Was it that Derek never sought power in the first place, but a family? Was it that he wanted to have people to care for, to cling to the notion of having something to fight for, to come back home to? And Scott snubbed his every bumbling attempt of help, matching Derek’s stubbornness, competing with Derek to be an asshole of the highest order. And to think if he joined Derek’s pack, maybe he could have balanced out Derek, help him take better decisions. How bad would it have been? Derek never wanted to use his kid betas to fight his fight. In fact he tried to shield them as much as possible, even Scott and Stiles who were technically not his pack, even Lydia, come to think of it. Derek thought everybody to be his responsibility whether they wanted him or not.

“Scott?” Derek asks.

Scott is jolted out of his meandering thoughts. “What?”

“I asked what is wrong with Roshni? Won’t she get better?”

“She had a tumour on the spinal cord.” Scott sighed. “It has been removed but she will never be able to use her legs again.”

“She is actually lucky Derek,” Melissa decides to join the conversation as Derek looks horrified at the revelation. “If the tumour developed further up, she might have been paralysed neck down and even then she might have needed a machine to help her breathe.”

Derek nods. “This is kind of why I dislike hospitals.”

“You are such an escapist,” Melissa shakes her head him but she is smiling fondly. “Werewolves don’t get sick doesn’t mean the rest of the world is not grappling with it.”

“You are right.” Derek looks suitably chastised. “But...it is not a pleasant thought.”

“No, it is really not.” Melissa’s face softens. “But at least you care.”

Derek nods, though Scott can see his mind is somewhere else. He is probably remembering his human cousins who perished in fire. This won’t do and he needs a distraction.

“So, why did you want to see mom?” He asks Derek. “Has something happened?”

Derek and Melissa exchange a glance.

“There has been an accident last evening or at least it looks like one.” Derek replies. “I discovered a car-wreck in the middle of the preserve and it was abandoned. It had hit a tree and whoever was in it didn’t stick around.”

“You think the driver was a werewolf?” Scott asks.

“I am sure at least one person in the car was a werewolf, but there were two other humans with them one of whom might be a hunter, because I could smell wolfsbane and gunpowder.”

“Oh,” Scott mulls over it for a moment. “Do we need to worry?”

“Just keep your eyes and ears opened.” Derek claps Scott on the back. “I have started patrolling the preserve again and I will let you know the moment I find anything.”

“Sure thing.” Scott flashes a thumbs up as Derek retreats after taking leave of Melissa. He doesn’t know why he flashes a thumbs up. Probably because he is still reeling from the small point of contact with Derek and he is so screwed that it is not even funny any more.

“Don’t forget to call a pack-meeting on Friday.” Derek calls out before disappearing round the corner.

“Sure.” Scott says to thin air and turns to face his mom with a sigh.

“Scott.” She eyes him pityingly.

“I know mom.” He ducks his head. “But things are so good with him now. I can’t...I mean, what if he doesn’t feel that way about me and I will end up ruining our friendship forever.”

“Oh hon,” Melissa reaches out and rubs his forearm comfortingly. “There are always risks to take in the matter of hearts. But you are not being honest with him. Do you think that is fair?”

“Mom,” Scott whines.

Melissa tsks. “You know, you are an adult now and I cannot tell you how to handle your love life, but just think of it as an option that you can probably tell him things and trust him not to judge you or treat you differently even if he is not on the same page as you are.”

“But it is Derek mom.” Scott pleads.

“It is.” Melissa chuckles. “That is why I am sure it is going to be alright either way.”

...

Things are not alright. In fact, they are so far from being alright that Scott has this insane urge to shake his fist at the sky and shout at their fate out of sheer frustration.

Derek has gone missing for three days now. It is only when Derek doesn’t turn up at his mom’s house on the Christmas as promised that they realised it. He is not at his home which doesn’t show any sign of being broken in. It was unlocked though and both the Sheriff and Stiles are of opinion that Derek may have unwittingly let the kidnappers in because he may have known them. It is not a pleasant thought, but Scott has to grasp at any clues he can get because he is out of him mind with worry.

The entire pack has gathered at Derek’s house, humans and non-humans alike and all of them have scoured through every inch of the preserve in search of a scent trail. But Derek’s scent is everywhere of course because he has been at every part of the forest recently to investigate the car accident. They are unable to pick up anything suspicious.

Everybody is quiet and subdued and nobody is even dropping hints about the grand New Year party they planned at Derek’s new house. Chris Argent, the Sheriff and Jordan Parrish are all working round the clock to comb through the town systematically to find the missing wolf.

“Maybe,” Stiles has shot an apologetic glance at Scot, “maybe he has taken off. I mean it is Derek after all. He is pretty unpredictable.”

“Dude,” Scott has shaken his head at him. “How can you say that? He built a house and settled in. He wanted to stay. Of course he wouldn’t take off like this without telling m...us.”

Roshni had asked Scott if Derek would come and visit him before she gets discharged at least five times. Scott doesn't know how to stop himself from bursting into tears the next time somebody mentions him.

The New Year comes and goes without any sign of Derek. Nobody even thinks about celebrating, not even Stiles who may have re-connected with Malia without meaning to do so. He does miss sourwolf surprisingly much more than he thought he would. It is strange because he didn't think much about Derek during the last eight years, but here in Beacon Hills, all the memories have resurfaced and Stiles realises he is not really mad at Derek for vying for the best friend spot with Scott. He is actually looking forward to know Derek, the real Derek when peace reigns at Beacon Hills. That was before Derek disappears and now Stiles is just pissed. He really thinks the man would catch a break after all the shit happened to him in this town. He keeps his handgun close and stalks the old haunting places of Derek, looking for a clue.

It doesn't surprise the pack that it is Stiles who discovers the clumsily washed down splatters of blood in Derek's old loft with the help of a blacklight.

Chris Argent and the Sheriff and the pack double up their vigil.

Melissa finds her son curled on his bed with a crumpled, green shirt balled up and pressed against his nose. He sits up and looks at her with red-rimmed eyes when she settles down on the edge of the bed.

“It still smells like him.” He says miserably. “I wish...I wish I listened to you and told him how much...” he bites off the sentence and his eyes get clouded over in silent misery.

Melissa calmly places a hand on Scott’s shoulder, looks him in the eye and says, “Find him.”

Scott grits his teeth and nods.


	6. Chapter 6

Scott insists on going back to San Francisco for the rest of their furniture all by himself. He needs to be alone. To get away. If another person looks at him the way Stiles has been looking at him of late, he will sprout claws and fangs spontaneously and rip their throats with his teeth.

Scott smiles at the memory and the smile turns into a laughter, until Scott realises he has started crying without realising it. But he is the alpha and a son and he has got responsibilities. It has been nearly four months and the pack has reluctantly called it quits. Scott has failed Derek. As an alpha and as a friend, he has failed him. He has been unable to protect him.

Scott knows he should get up from the couch he has been curled into and start packing. He knows he has promised his mom he would be back as soon as the moving truck leaves, but he cannot bring himself to care. Maybe he can stay a little bit longer. Avoid going back to the place which doesn’t feel like home anymore. Maybe this feeling that he is adrift and not quite settled down into his own skin will go away. Maybe he can pretend that he has never gone back to Beacon Hills in the first place and meet a wolf named Derek Hale again and lose him even before he has a chance to say all those things he has been meaning to say to him all these years.

His mobile phone vibrates in his jean pocket and even the vibration feels accusing.

 

_If you are brooding into the couch I will know about it_

 

In spite of himself Scott huffs out a laugh. And then,

 

_You aren’t coming back anytime soon. Aren’t you?_

 

Shit! This is the side effects of being best friends who don’t need to communicate through words.

‘ _Soon_.’ He replies. To hell with it but at least for this once the Chief of Medicine in the Beacon Hills High having a werewolf step-son should come in handy. In fact, this will probably be the first time Scott is going to ask for a favour from Dr. Dunbar. He follows it up with another text:

 

 _But not so soon_.

 

...

Scott drops the milk bottle.

It reminds him of another time which seems to be a century ago though it has only been a decade when Derek made him drop a milk bottle.

That was late in the evening in a spooky parking lot and this is in broad daylight right in the middle of the supermarket.

“Sir, you have to pay for that.” A shop assistant says loudly, pointing towards the bottle.

Derek looks up at that from where he has been inspecting breakfast cereals. He has a carton of fruit loops in one hand and cookie crisps in the other. He has been frowning down at them, clearly torn.

The fact that Scott refrains from leaping across the floor to get to Derek is a miracle in itself.

Derek seems baffled at the attention and he surreptitiously looks back, as if checking if it is him that Scott has been gaping at. Then he breaks into a tentative smile and wiggles his fingers looking incredibly awkward about it.

“Derek.” Scott whispers, knowing Derek will be able to hear him and Derek does start walking towards him. Slowly. It is like Derek is not sure if he wants to approach him which is so utterly ridiculous. Of course, Scott is mad that Derek is alive and apparently unharmed and yet he hasn’t informed anybody. Scott is willing to give him the benefit of doubt because the mad anger is rearing his ugly head inside him again, the particular brand of anger that only Derek can provoke and Scott is determined not to make a mess like he did during his teenage years when never listened to Derek, sometimes even going so far as deliberately misunderstanding his intentions. Maybe Derek has been injured and recuperating. Maybe before leaving for Beacon Hills he needed some time for himself. To be alone, just like Scott. Maybe he wants to be somewhere else other than Beacon Hills because he doesn’t want anybody to fuss over him and he has made a stop at the supermarket...because he is hungry and sugary cereal seems to be the most appealing thing right now!

“Hi,” Derek greets him, stopping a good few feet away. There is a blush high on his cheekbones and he is shuffling feet to feet, clearly uncomfortable. “Um...d-do I know you?”

“What?” Scott asks, completely flabbergasted.

The blush on Derek’s cheeks deepens and Scott’s inside somersaults. Derek looks like he is seconds away from bolting. “You have been staring at me for the last five minutes. I thought...” he mumbles.

Wait!

Derek doesn’t mumble or shuffle from foot to foot. He is not in the habit of blushing at the drop of a hat like this either.

“Jack!” A girl of about Scott’s age nearly pounces on Derek and grabs him by the arm. She has been dragging a young girl along with her. “Here you are. What did I tell you about wandering off?” She slaps him on the arm and turns round to face Scott.

“Ow.” Derek complains, rubbing at his arm.

“Sorry for that. My brother is...he is sick. We don’t like him out of our sight.”

Scott studies the girl. She has got dark hair and blue eyes. She can be related to Derek if you count high cheekbones and slender figure genetic traits. Her heart is hammering against her ribcage and she is stinking of anxiety and fear which actually verifies her remark, but Derek...

The other girl, who must be around twelve or thirteen starts tugging him by the shirtsleeve.

“Not you too Amy.” Derek rolls his eyes in the true Derek fashion, but lets himself be dragged away by the duo. “I’m not really sick you know. I am only...”

“Shut up Jack and move your feet.” The younger girl Amy says, eyeing Scott with a distrust bordering on fear he is not used to nowadays.

“Uh...it was nice to meet you?” Derek throws over his shoulder, shrugging apologetically.

Scott stands rooted to the spot until the shop assistant yells into his face. When he finally manages to coax his feet into moving and rush down to the parking lot after paying for the milk bottle there is no trace of them. Scott sniffs, but it is San Francisco, and there are millions of smells hitting his flared nostrils making him cringe and try to shut down his senses again.

It is only when Scott has returned to his apartment in a daze that it hits him – Amy smelt like a werewolf and Derek didn’t.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, published my original work. If you like my fic, don't forget to drop by at my website at   
> [www.theauthorkamalika.org](https://www.theauthorkamalika.org/)

“Hey.” Scott looks up and tenses immediately.

Derek is smiling down at him with his hands shoved into his pockets of his Navy blue hoodie. The colour is doing amazing things with his eyes, making them look bluer and greener at the same time in the afternoon sun, like it cannot quite decide which colour to settle on.

It’s been two weeks in a row that he has been camping at the little bistro right across the supermarket. Well, maybe it is a bit far-fetched, but people do tend to buy their groceries from the same place. Usually. Unless they are scared off by a strange alpha gaping at their siblings whom they may or may not have kidnapped from home and wiped the memory of so that they can keep them for themselves. Hmm...Scott is clearly missing Stiles because the entire thing sounded like Stiles in his head. He can almost see Stiles rolling his eyes and adding a sarcastic rejoinder to it. Scott misses Stiles. But he isn't, at this moment, in the right headspace to go back home. Especially after the run-in with the mysterious Derek-twin or whoever the fuck that was. Hence, the camping. He positioned himself so that could see people going in and coming out of the supermarket easily but somehow Derek has escaped his notice until now. No wonder because Derek smells different. Derek always smells woodsy and there is usually a smell of leather accompanying him, not unpleasant at all but very warm and very male. But this Derek smells of pecan pies, of sunshine and lazy Sundays in bed, of pink satin ribbons and strawberry shampoo, sweet and vulnerable.

Vulnerability is written in every line of his face, in the way he is blushing furiously (again!) and the way his shoulders are drawn inward like he is not sure if he is welcome and the way his hair is longer and curling around in soft waves behind his ears and on his forehead, the quivering smile at his lips that reaches his eyes crinkling at the corner, like Scott is this amazing thing he has discovered and he doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

“I just saw you sitting here and...” he scratches his neck, “I promise you I am not a creeper or anything, but just the other day my sister was so rude to you. And I...”

He bits his lower lip, stark white bunny teeth sinking into the plush pout, leaving dents.

This guy is going to be the death of Scott!

“I am sorry. I didn’t know what I thought.” Derek starts backing away.

“No!” Scott leaps to his feet with an outstretched hand which he lowers immediately when Derek looks baffled at the vehemence of his denial. The people lounging at the nearby tables glance towards them curiously.

“Sorry,” Scott says sheepishly. “Please sit. I want to...talk to you too.”

What he really wants is to get to know Derek. His story. Either there is something terribly wrong with Derek or this is his long lost twin brother which he has never told anyone about. At any rate, Scott is not ready to let him go.

Derek smiles at that. Pleased and inordinately shy, the deep blush never leaving his cheeks. But he settles across the small table looking dazzlingly beautiful and as out of place in the tiny roadside cafeteria as a runway model lost in a forest. Or this one doesn’t look like a model like Derek tends to do. This one looks like a Disney prince, who has somehow escaped the realm of fairy tales and is pretending to be an ordinary human. Just to humour them.

“I think an introduction is in order.” Derek says, looking at Scott in the eyes in spite of his evident bashfulness. “I am Jack Turner.”

“You are way hotter than him.” Is what Scott blurts out.

Brilliant!

Derek lights up scarlet up to the root of his hair and Scott would give anything to know how far the blush spreads beneath the hoodie and what else can make him blush like that.

At least he is smiling again and maintaining eye contact. Well, Derek even with no memory or turned to human somehow, in the clutches of strange people, most probably a prisoner, becoming a shy and awkward shadow of himself still holds his courage like a torch. A courage that Scott doesn’t think _he_ can muster for he is having a really difficult time looking at Derek.

Because if he has been falling for Derek when he went back to Beacon Hills, he realises he has already fallen. Hard.

“Thank you.” Derek manages, sounding half please and half embarrassed. “And you are?”

“Scott McCall.”

“Scott.” Derek tastes the name like he is uttering it for the first time. There is a lilt to his voice which has never been there before. “Are you from around here?”

"Portola? No, I don't." Scott decides to go for the truth. “I am from Beacon Hills.”

Derek tilts his head and Scott’s heart leaps to his throat. “Do I know that place? The name seems familiar.”

"Are you from here?" Scott counters because to answer Derek's question will be to open a can of worms he is not ready to deal with just yet. 

"I live with my sister." Derek makes a face like he is very much ashamed to admit it. "Silver Avenue." 

"Oh, that is just..." Scott doesn't even know what are the odds, because their apartment is on the University Street, just a few blocks away. "Cool?" He finishes lamely. 

Derek smiles at that and Scott blames the funny feelings he gets in his stomach each time Derek smiles that he blurts out, “Jack, does the name Derek Hale mean anything to you?”

"Should it?" Derek frowns and he even frowns differently. It looks less like a scowl than like he is trying hard to solve a puzzle. It is ridiculously adorable.

Suddenly, he grabs his head with both hands and groans.

“Derek?” Scott leaps to his feet again.

“No...I am...my name is Jack.” Derek looks up at Scott, though he doesn’t remove his death grip from his head. “I just told you.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Scott hovers, wanting to touch Derek desperately. “Are you hurt?”

Derek suddenly shoves away from the table with his chair and all and doubles over. He has turned as white as a sheet and Scott doesn’t even bother asking for permission, but hauls him to his feet.

“Let us get you out of here.” He drops a couple of twenties on the table and grabs Derek’s hand to drape it across his own shoulder. He is the shorter one and so it is easier this way. Derek is cold to touch and that itself is worrisome. Scott takes most of his weight as he pulls him towards the parking lot.

“I ruined your coffee or whatever you were having.” Derek says unhappily. “I am fine. You can let me go.”

Scott can hear Derek’s heart tripping over the lie. Apparently the default expression of ‘I-am-fine’ even when he is falling into pieces is such a definitive characteristic of Derek that it is the only thing that sticks through the memory loss.

Scott gasps. Derek has lost his memory and this is so monumental that Scott forgets to breathe for a moment and releases Derek. Derek immediately  turns to face him and reaches out automatically to steady him when he himself is wobbling on his feet. It is so backward that it should have Scott in stitches, but Scott is not laughing.

“Are you ok?” Derek asks.

“Oh my God?” Scott throws his hands in air. “Are _you_ ok?”

“I am...” Derek sighs and Scott grabs his hand without thinking.

“Come on. Let me take you home.” The word ‘home’ tastes like acid into his mouth, but he needs Derek to trust him, not to spook him away. What exactly would he say to Derek anyway? That he is a werewolf, used to be a werewolf, with his entire family murdered by a psychopath who used him as her tool and then fucked him up every way imaginable. That he had no one in the whole wide world except for a little sister who is in a different continent? That in spite of everything he has sacrificed for the teens he cared for and the town he protected the teens and the town made sure he was still an omega, an outcast and let him be taken? Again? And how many times would that even be?

No, Scott doesn’t have the courage to look into Derek’s soft and trusting eyes and blurt out the truth like that.

So his heart clenches as Derek lets him, a complete stranger, lead him wherever he wants even when he is in blinding pain.

He doesn’t release Derek’s hand  until he finds his car and opens the passenger seat for him.

“I have got my own car.” He protests, although he is clearly holding back a wince. He smells of so much pain that Scott is wondering how he is even standing upright.

“I am not going to let you drive when you are obviously in pain.” Scott gestures towards the seat. “I am a nurse. I can help you. Please.”

Derek grumbles, but he complies. Scott releases a breath he has not been aware of holding and he slides into the driver seat and starts the car.

“Put on your seatbelt.”

Has he not been a werewolf he would have missed the quiet snort.

“What?” Scott turns to Derek who gives him a classic deer-caught-in-headlights look.

“It is a Dodge Dart.” Derek clarifies. When Scott continues to stare, he sighs. “Well, I don’t expect it to actually beat the speed limit, let alone causing an accident.”

Scott narrows his eyes at Derek. He never took Derek for a car-snob, but of course there was that douchy Camaro even though he did follow it up with a soccer mom car.

“So what if it's not a speed monster? It's a perfectly sensible car." Scott says defensively. "Seatbelt.” He adds sternly.

“Ok.” Derek grumbles again. “Pushy.”

Derek breaks the silence again when Scott takes a right turn to emerge on the Bayshore freeway. 

"Who is Derek Hale?" he asks instead and Scott nearly crashes the car. He steals a glance at Derek who is looking at him with a curious expression on his face.

"Uh...he is a friend." Scott hedges. "You kind of remind me of him."

"Oh," Derek says, still looking curious and smelling a little bit subdued. "Was it why you were staring at me the other day? Because I look like your friend?"

 _'No'_  Scott wants to answer. _It is because he is you_ \- he wants to yell. Instead he just nods stiffly, then he catches the way Derek's face falls at that. This Derek, however sunnier he seems, still has the same underlying aura of sadness about him as _the_ Derek and Scott hates himself a bit to cause additional hurt, though he doesn't know why this Derek, Jack, as he calls himself would be hurt at that. But he tries anyway.

"Also because you kind of lit up the entire place." He blurts out before his mind can catch up with himself. Derek startles at that and Scott curses himself mentally. He never ever imagined the scenario when he would try to flirt with Derek Hale of all people. 

But at least that draws out another shy smile. This is way better. Derek should smile like that more often, or probably all the time. Scott didn't even know he had dimples before he smiled at him properly the first time. He still remembers the BHH locker room and Derek's confrontation with Liam. He remembers how that smile transformed Derek's entire face as he assured Scott how apparently he has the _alpha_ -ing thing down pat. Scott might have forgotten to breathe for a couple of seconds before reminding himself this is only Derek. Prickly, sour, closed-off, emotionally-stunted automaton of a werewolf. Only Derek has never been any of that!

“Can you not take me to my sister’s place?” Derek says, changing the subject like the gentleman that he is. He sounds like he is geared up to be disappointed. “I don’t want them to worry over me. They fuss too much when I have these headaches.”

“Of course.” Scott says immediately. “Would you like me to take you to my place instead? It’s just me since my room-mate moved out a few months back. Only if you want it.”

“Why will you want to have me around? I am an invalid. Apparently, I cannot even do a grocery run without running into trouble.” Derek says somewhat bitterly.

“So, I am trouble?” Scott smirks at Derek who seems to be opening up to him and it thrills him to no end.

“You can be trouble.” Derek agrees and there goes the blush again.

“I would take that as a complement as it’s meant to be.”

“Clearly.” Derek deadpans and Scott nearly hits the brake in shock. But one look at Derek and he knows Derek is not back yet because his tone may be dry, but he is still blushing a pretty pink, looking sideways towards Scott.

And he is still human and in a lot of pain.

“Your sisters,” Scott asks, “there are two of them?”

“No, just one. Lori.” Derek sighs, looking down at his hands. “Amy is our cousin, though she is practically a sister since she has lost both her parents a few months back.”

This Derek is much too trusting and Scott feels half bad to take advantage of him, but he knows if he has to save Derek, he needs to find the truth about his foster family.

The rest of the drive is silent. Scott knows he should ask Derek again if he is ok to let a complete stranger take him home when he is this vulnerable, but he bites his tongue and keeps quiet, not wanting to sabotage his only chance to get to unravel what happened to Derek.

When he finally opens the door of his apartment to let Derek in, he feels ashamed of the way he has neglected to keep the apartment clean. At least he is infinitely glad that he and Stiles wanted to keep it until the end of their agreement period which doesn’t get over until July.

Derek doesn’t bat an eyelid at the clutter or the half-heartedly done packing or the boxes strewn haphazardly across the floor. But he does plop down on the couch and asks Scott shakily if he has an aspirin. Scott does and he promptly produces one along with a glass of water. Derek tips it down his throat and chugs the water.

“Thank you so much.” He says, tipping his head back and closing his eyes.

Scott takes time to admire Derek a bit more. The colour is returning to Derek’s skin as the medicine is working into his system. Derek is clean-shaven and with his hair like that, mussed and all natural, he looks incredibly young. He is looking thinner too. Not that Derek has ever been anything close to overweight, far from it actually, but he has always been a bit buff. His impressive forearms and strong shoulders and well-defined muscles pretty much hid how slender he really is, near the tapered waist and the delicate wrists which are draped across his stomach.

Scott feels the desire to touch Derek is soon becoming a stark physical need. As necessary as breathing. Suddenly, Derek’s eyes fly open and he catches Scott staring at him. Then he flushes, predictably.

Scott is never going to get tired of those damn blushes!

“Hey, um...I am so sorry.” Derek starts sitting up. “I completely ruined your day. I am such an inconsiderate moron.”

Scott smiles at the self-deprecating epithet. “Not moron. If you are a moron, I wish I have a moron like you to match with my couch and stare at him everyday.”

Then he claps a hand over his mouth. “God, I didn’t...I am so sorry. I didn’t realise what was coming out of my mouth before I actually said it. I didn’t mean that. Or wait, I actually meant that, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I mean, you can leave if you are uncomfortable or you can stay and I will keep the front door open. So that you can know you can leave whenever -”

“Scott.” Derek says with a hint of command and Scott’s mouth snaps shut on its own. “I am here. I am not leaving. You can keep the front door open if it eases your mind and similarly you will tell me to fuck off the moment I start getting on your nerves. Deal?”

“Deal.” Scott says shakily.

“And for the record,” Derek smirks up at him, “I like you too.”

“You...what?” Scott splutters. “No. You can’t do that.”

Derek frowns as Scott collapses on the couch beside him. This is his turn to hold his head and when he steals a glance at Derek he groans for of course he is looking adorably concerned again. For him!

“Uh...did I say something wrong?” Derek asks softly. “I thought you liked me and I don’t really...expect anything, but I just wanted you to know how I feel.”

“You said you like me.” Scott says in a strangled voice.

“I am sorry. Shouldn’t I have said that?” Derek is wringing his hands and Scott doesn’t know if that is going to trigger that phantom pain again. He knows Derek’s headache or whatever he has been feeling is psychosomatic because no pain-killer in the world works quite that quickly, but as a nurse he knows a psychosomatic pain can hurt as much as a real one.

“No, just...” Scott cannot help it. He reaches out and places his hand on Derek’s stilling the movements of the latter. “I was not expecting it. Not from you.”

“Is it because I am sick?” Derek looks unbelievably sad.

“You said the other day you are not sick.” Scott doesn’t remove his hand, because, well just because. Because it feels good. Derek doesn’t run at an unnaturally high temperature now. He is human. Painfully so. And he is so innocent that it breaks Scott’s heart.

“I have amnesia.” Derek clarifies, filling at least one of the missing pieces of the puzzle. “I can’t remember anything before the time I woke up in the hospital. They said it was because of trauma. There was an accident and there had been internal injuries.” He shrugged like it is nothing. “Amy’s parents were killed in it and I lost my memory. Apparently I was in an induced coma for a couple of months.”

Scott wants to scream into his face if that is the case how does he know what his ‘sister’ tells him is the truth, but he knows better. He knows Derek is in a fragile state right now and any extreme emotion can tip him over to the point of no return. He cannot do that to Derek.

“Tell me about your sister. She looked very protective of you.” He says instead.

“She is.” Derek chuckles. “Amy is even more so. Kevin is the only one who understands that I need to...get away. He is my sister's boyfriend. They are getting married this autumn.” Derek chuckles fondly.

“And you are happy for them.” Scott concludes.

“Of course.” Derek says without missing a beat. “But, sometimes, even though you understand people love you and care for you, you just feel suffocated you know.” Derek looks up at him. “Or maybe I am this horrible person who doesn’t deserve a family to care for him at all.”

Scott chokes up. “No. No, that is not true. I am sure you deserve as much happiness as you can have. You deserve even more. Never say that you don’t deserve a family.”

“But you don’t even know me.” Derek raises an eyebrow. “See, I knew you like me. I mean _like_ like me.”

“What are you?” Scott asks blandly. “Twelve?”

“No, that would be Amy. She is always going on about if a boy in her school likes her or likes likes her and I think it’s a really interesting expression.”

“From a twelve year old.”

“Don’t be so judgey.” Derek huffs. “Twelve year olds can impart wisdom none of us can even bother to realise.”

Scott smiles. “You seem to love your family a lot. It must be hard not to be able to remember.”

Derek looks away. “I do. And sometimes I get this feeling that I know, deep down, that I have always loved my family and how it feels to hug a sister close to my chest, how to finish the homework for a younger cousin, how to come home to burnt dinner and to order pizza...how to mourn for a death...digging with bare hands until skin starts to peel off my flesh and my nails are all broken and bloody and still not stopping because somebody will take her away if they know it...somebody will take her away...somebody will take her from me and she is all I have got and I cannot let them take her away...I cannot...and I tried to tell them, but they won’t listen...they...they dig up Laura’s grave....they...think I....”

The sound of the slap reverberates throughout the apartment, ricocheting from the walls, bouncing against the scant furniture, rolling over the carpet, under the sofa set, settling down at the pit of Scott’s stomach in the form of a ball of fear. Derek looks stunned but at least his eyes are not glassed over anymore like he doesn’t even feel Scott straddling him, pinning him down bodily and shaking him hard.

“What did I just say?” Derek’s voice is small and scared. “I said something terrible, didn’t I? I said...I say things that upset Lori and Amy and Kevin and Lori and Amy begin to cry and Kevin cannot even stay in the same room as me and then they tiptoe around me like I am made of glass. I ruin everything. I feel I have been ruining everything around me for a long time.”

“No..no, that is not...” Scott feels the rage like the power of a thousand burning sun. He holds Derek’s face and makes him look straight into his eyes. “I have known you for half an hour only, but I know one thing for sure. I know that you are unequivocally good. You have to believe me. You have trusted me so much that you have let me take you home, told me your secrets, about your family, about your loss, you have let me tend to you. Now, I am asking me to trust you. You are not responsible for your suffering of for anything that has ever happened to you.”

“You don’t understand...” Derek says, but he places his hands over Scott’s, burning him even though his hands are ice-cold.

“I understand only too much.” Scott says. “I understand about blaming myself because my first girlfriend, the love of my life died in my arms and I let go the second one because I was too stupid to understand her worth.”

Derek searches his face and suddenly Scott is aware how intimately they have been sitting this entire time. When Derek has started hyperventilating and he seemed to have been transported mentally to another dimension, Scott hasn’t bothered with the decorum.

Now his entire body is tingling and his blood is singing in his veins.

“Girlfriend.” Derek says blandly, looking dull.

“My third one,” Scott meets Derek’s stare head on and grits out, “is a one-sided crush. I tried to drop hints but they never took it.”

“She sounds stupid.” Derek comments snottily.

“ _He_ is.” Scott smiles at him and Derek gawks at him. “But he is also incredibly brave, kind-hearted and generous and is loyal to a fault and is always placing the blame on himself and has a protective streak a mile-wide.”

“He seems like an ok sort of man then.” Derek is trying to avert his eyes, but Scott doesn’t let him.

“He really is, but it doesn’t matter because he is gone.” He says. “He has been taken from me and I don’t know where he is.”

Derek does something incredible then. He pulls Scott down and brings his forehead to rest against his own.

“I am so sorry.” He says sincerely. “I wish you could find him and live happily ever after. You look like somebody who deserves a happily ever after.”

Scott closes his eyes and shivers at the feeling of Derek’s breath almost ghosting on his lips. Scott’s fingers move on their own, finding Derek’s bottom lip and brushing lightly against it.

“Scott...” Derek closes his eyes and whispers. The sweet lilt in his voice goes straight to Scott’s dick and Derek...Derek can feel him damn it because he is sitting pretty much pressed against him.

“Scott...” Derek moans and Scott clearly has the self preservation instinct of a lemming and so he breaches the gap and kisses Derek.

Electricity crackle between them as their lips part. Scott loses the sense of self and finds himself at the same time. He is so incredibly lost and it is like Derek is enveloping him with his entire being. Scott is bathed in light and there is no darkness anywhere. He is in Derek’s arms and he is safe again. The fear and the anxiety and the worry and the grief, all are things of past. Time is sand that slips through the gap of fingers and Scott wants to hold this one moment to his heart and die forever. The feeling of Derek’s warm lips on his and his hands around his waist like they belong here and the way his own fingers bury into Derek’s inky tresses rough and possessive and angles Derek’s face as he pleases and Derek going with it. Soft and pliant.

Derek sighs into the kiss and Scott hates, absolutely hates to do this to him, but he pulls away. Slowly. Pecking him on the lips and on the nose and just for luck on the forehead. He untangles his limbs though he is not sure which one belongs to his and stands up, wobbling like a newborn colt.

Derek looks up at him with hunger and longing and a shy question.

And God, Scott really wants to see how far that blush spreads.

“I should take you home.” He says. “Your sister must be missing you.”

Derek looks at the floor and nods.

Scott’s heart melts and he offer a hand which Derek takes, going back to his shy self. The car ride to Derek’s apartment is again a silent one barring the quiet instructions Derek gives out. When they reach their destination which turns out to be a posh apartment complex with high security Derek invites him to come inside to meet his family.

“Another time.” Scott tries to make his smile genuine, feeling grief-stricken on behalf of Derek to know the real fact about the real family or families of Derek, the one he was born into and the one he built around him.

Derek catches onto it and he leans in to rub his cheek against Scott’s instead of a kiss that Scott has been expecting. Scott is staring at him open-mouth in shock when Derek asks timidly, “I will see you again?”

“You already know my place.” Scott grins at him. “But I think I can do with your phone number in the meanwhile.”

“I don’t have a cellphone.” Derek says. “Just tell me yours.”

Scott tells and he is puzzled when Derek opens the door and steps out of the car without bothering to write it down.

“You didn’t...” he leans across the console to look up at Derek who arches an eyebrow at him. “Write it down?” He finishes, not even bothering to hide the disappointment in his tone.

“Photographic memory.” Derek taps his head twice. “Ironic, huh?”

Scott thinks there should be a limit as to how much he is allowed to gape at a single man.

“Goodbye Scott. See you around.” Derek gives a small, awkward wave and walks away.

Scott doesn’t leave until Derek disappears round the bend and of course he turns before he does that, sees Scott’s car still waiting at the curb and blushes and Scott witnesses all these because he is an alpha werewolf.

And Derek doesn’t know the first thing about any of it.


	8. Chapter 8

Turns out Stiles is not the only one to have the monopoly over dumb and reckless ideas. Scott is equally capable of making that choice voluntarily. He can only shake his head at himself at the foolishness of it all. He promised himself he would give Derek time, would be happy to watch from afar how he is doing. That he would let Derek enjoy spending time with his family whom he clearly thinks a world of and who, on the surface at least, seems to treat him like one of their own. Derek hasn’t had that luxury for a long time. There were Peter and Cora, of course, but Peter doesn’t even count and Cora, with all the love she has for her brother, lives hundreds of miles away. She is not a part of Derek’s life even though Scott knows they keep in touch. Then there is Braeden. At first, Scott had mixed feelings about the mercenary, but he was willing to give her the benefit of doubt for sake of Derek.

The day Derek parted ways with the pack in Mexico, with a slight nod that spoke volumes without a single word spoken aloud, Scott was happy for him. He was happy that Derek was alive and had got back his power and had grown into it. He thought the pinprick of grief in his heart was for an old, familiar face whom he might miss occasionally.

It didn’t take a long time for the pinprick to become a gaping hole, tormenting him with nightmares of Derek, unapproachable and cold, leaving Scott bleeding on the road, in the forest, on the tiled floors of the BHH locker room. Scott would call out, would shout his name, but Derek was always leaving, face impassive and shoulders tense, pace never faltering, never ever looking back. He is always turning away from Scott and Scott is desperate to reach him for some reason, an urgency he has never felt in his real life.

Scott will wake up in the middle of night, sweating and will ask himself why of all the nightmares he used to have why this particular one bothered him so, when this was not even the goriest for that would be Allison’s death, or the scariest for that would be Peter’s alpha form chasing him through the forest, or the most disturbing in which he is having an asthma attack and Stiles refuses to give him the inhaler, holding it out of his reach, laughing at him cruelly. Scott didn’t know where Derek fitted into the dark recesses of his mind. But he knew Derek was something important – far more important than he realised and he realised it too late.

But all the nightmares in the world couldn’t make him call Derek, because (he assumed) Derek was happier wherever he was.

He should have known better Beacon Hills would call Derek back no matter what because he was a born werewolf and it was home and to a werewolf a home is not merely a home, it was what defined him and destroyed him and Derek was helpless against its cruel pull.

So, Scott tried to feel glad that even though Derek has lost so much, again, he has gained a family. And Scott should have waited. Without knowing anything about Derek’s medical condition, he knew that stress wouldn’t be good for a person who is amnesiac.

Then again...

Of course, he has to break into their apartment. He has to know if Derek is actually safe or if these are all a farce to lull Derek into a false sense of security before doing something horrible to him. The sad thing is, with Derek’s luck, it would not even be an entirely unlikely scenario.

But he should have called for back-up or asked Stiles to come down and plan something together, because Stiles is the better planner of the two.

Well, hindsight is a bitch because none of these matter as of now, since apparently, the apartment has some hi-fi security system that got activated the moment Scott stepped onto the hardwood floor after crawling through the window and of course, the security guards would come rushing in and the police would not be too far behind. Scott has barely made his escape, scaling the high wall that surrounded the property when in his haste he grabs the barbed wire blindly, slicing his palm open in the process. The next thing he knows he is tumbling down, dizzy and disoriented while his entire hand seems to be on fire.

He can hear the security guards at a distance. Damn, do they have to be this fast and are the police always this prompt to answer a burglary alarm? It is not even a burglary, Scott wanted to protest. His eyes are drooping close though and it’s getting increasingly difficult to think past the haze that seems to have overtaken his mind.

Well, one thing’s for sure. He is completely screwed!

...

“Jack, for the last time...let the police –”

“I don’t want him arrested. Or jailed. Or anything.”

“Jack, you don’t even know him. He may be a complete psycho. He most possibly is.”

“Lori...”

“Dude, she may be right. He was kind of stalking you. Why else would he try to break into our home?”

“Can we just...wait for him to wake up and give him a chance to explain?”

Scott blinks and closes his eyes against the harsh light. He takes stock of his body. His head hurt and his ankle is killing him, probably from the fall. His palm is tingling and it seems to be cleaned and bandaged up.

“Wake up sleeping beauty,” a girly voice chirps near his ear. “I can hear your heartbeat speeding up.”

“Amy!”

It’s Derek’s voice and Scott opens his eyes immediately to see Derek glaring at the young girl who had pulled Derek away from him in the supermarket.

“What? He is a werewolf too. I can smell him.”

“What?” Derek looked at Scott and his eyes are so full of hurt.

“Why do you think we drag you away that day?” Amy said patiently. “He is an alpha too. They are out of control and unpredictable.”

“Maybe that is why he has been stalking you, Jack.” Scott turns his head to stare at the brunette who is sitting in an arm-chair and has her arms across her chest. She has a gun on her lap which she is casually holding on to. Scott sniffs the air discreetly and yes, there is the faint trace of wolfsbane wafting off the weapon.

It keeps on getting better and better!

“Rise and shine because we have questions for you,” she addresses Scott this time, making direct eye-contact and even though she is no wolf, she is intimidating enough to nearly pass off as one.

He sits up gingerly ignoring the pain. Oh, wait...why is he not healing?

“It seems coating the barbed wire around the perimeter fence with wolfsbane has not been a complete waste of time,” she smirks at Scott.

Derek’s head whipped towards her instantly.

“Is that why he is not healing?” he demands and Scott feels a brief thrill of surprise that even now Derek is concerned for him.

“Oh, he will heal. But slowly,” the girl answers without taking her eyes off Scott. “I am not risking having an alpha wolf in full control of his abilities in my home.”

Derek looks torn, but he also shoves the younger girl, Amy, off the bed.

“I think that is enough excitement for you in one day,” he says. “Go to your room.”

“Are you out of your damn mind?” Amy huffs. “Who is the supernatural creature between the three of us?”

Lori’s heartbeat starts racing at the casual remark and she snaps at Amy, “Sit on the couch and keep your mouth shut.”

“But...” Derek throws her a quelling glare that makes it clear he won’t let the girl an inch closer to Scott. That is so Derek that Scott nearly cries.

“Fine,” she says, stomping across the room and collapsing into the sofa gracelessly. “Have your throats ripped out and see if I care.”

“I am not feral you know.” Scott finally remembers he has a vocal cord and it can be put to use in this situation.

“All werewolves are feral. That’s why we hunt them,” huffs the girl.

“Amy!” Both Derek and Lori yells at her simultaneously.

“So, you are hunters?” Scott asks incredulously, bracing himself for an attack. “That is the reason you have kidnapped Derek then?”

“What?”

“Derek? The friend you mentioned the other day? From Beacon Hills?”

Lori and Derek started and they looked at each other. Derek narrowed his eyes at her.

“You never said about kidnapping a werewolf? You said we only hunt down the rogue ones and we put them down as painlessly as possible.”

“Oh did she leave out how they _love_ to torture them with electrocution before killing them? Or how sometimes they burn the wolves alive or slice them into two halves with a sword?” Scott can feel his eyes are red even though he is still considerably weak from the wolfsbane in his bloodstream. In a way, it is probably for greater good because Scott kind of wants some throat-ripping. They have not only kidnapped Derek and wiped his memory clean, but they have also brainwashed him into thinking he is a hunter just like them?

“I don’t know what you are talking about and I don’t know any Derek,” Lori doesn’t seem flustered but there is confusion in her furrowed brows. Her heartbeat doesn’t falter. This doesn’t mean anything though since hunters learn from a young age to control their heartbeats around werewolves.

“We don’t torture anybody. You are a lying piece of shit,” Amy pipes up indignantly from her position on the sofa.

“Shut up, Amy,” Derek and Lori shout again, in perfect sync and then they look at each other and smirk.

Scott, well, he is jealous. Insanely so. Who are these people Derek has developed such intimate connection with so fast when he is the one with a mile-wide trust issue? The answer is painfully obvious actually. Derek has not always been such a grouch. There used to be a time he was too trusting, Peter and Kate are the glaring proof of it, the way both the psychopaths were able to twist Derek around their little fingers.

Now, Derek’s amnesia has peeled off the layer of distrust and the wall that he surrounds himself with. Scott realises with a start that Derek has woken up on a hospital bed without a shred of memory, but a family to care for him and even when they are lying through their teeth, Derek has subconsciously grasped at the reality where he can have a family again. Something he has always been craving for, deep down. He has never even paused to think it may be all a lie because he wants to believe it so much.

And now, he is going to shatter the illusion, breaking Derek’s heart in the process and probably taking away the chances of him recovering from whatever trauma he has suffered through.

“If I am lying, you will know it, won’t you?” Scott says calmly, addressing the only other werewolf in the room.

Three heads swivel towards him. Scott clears his throat and tries not to feel like he is the villain of this story for what he is about to do.

“To answer your question, Jack,” he pauses, making eye-contact with Derek who is frowning again. He hasn’t once laughed or blushed during the entire time and that seems so wrong already, though real Derek never does either of that. “To answer your question, yes, I am talking about Derek. My friend from Beacon Hills. Who has been kidnapped by what we suspected werewolf-hunters.”

He breathes out.

“And you are him.”


	9. Chapter 9

“And you are him.”

It’s like the room is struck by a lightning bolt. Amy leaps up from the sofa and springs towards Scott, but Lori immediately rushes to her, intercepting her halfway. In the blink of an eye, she has her in a chokehold from the back before she can claw Scott’s face off.

Derek has stood up, face ashen, and he is shaking his head. “No. No…no, it’s not true. Lori will never…no, you are lying…”

Scott can hear Lori’s heart jack-rabbitting and it cannot be only from the adrenaline.

“Am I though?” Scott directs his question at Lori, ignoring the snarling girl whom she is barely able to restrain using all her strength.

Lori cannot meet his eyes over Amy's head whose scent has turned furious to confused and she is struggling less and less in hunter’s hold.

“Lo?” Derek asks in a small voice and if Scott were less selfish, he would have kept his big mouth shut.  

Amy stills in Lori’s arms and slowly turns to peer up into her face.

“Is he telling the truth?”

Lori bites her lip. Gone is the confident girl who looked badass enough to be able to single-handedly take on an alpha werewolf. She has difficulty in meeting anybody’s eyes and her scent has gone sour – with guilt.

Amy’s eyes widen. “Oh no, you didn’t, Lori!”

Scott doesn’t even know these people, but he is a compassionate person or so he thinks. Still, he finds it difficult to dredge up some sympathy for the girl, Lori when he can see how Derek’s entire world is crumbling down around him. He feels this must be what he felt when he learnt about Kate’s betrayal. Scott never wanted Derek to go through that again.

But here they are!

“Am I a werewolf?” Derek asks hollowly, staring into space. “Am I Derek Hale?”

 _Yes_ , Scott wants to shout. He _is_ Derek, Scott’s Derek.

“I never knew your first name,” Lori whispers, staring at the floor. “I thought you were an omega.”

“That’s why you decided to what…kidnap me?” Derek asks softly, far too softly, without bothering to look at her.

Lori grimaces. “I knew you would be vulnerable without your powers when the hunters come in search of Amy.” Then, she drags her eyes up, looking at Derek pleadingly. “Please,” she says, “I wanted to protect you.”

“I think he deserves to know the whole truth,” Scott says resolutely.

Both Amy and Lori bristle at his tone, but he marches on, “Also, now is the time you tell me what exactly you did to him because at Beacon Hills we look after our own. And Derek is our own.” He stands up and looks at her stonily. “You will soon discover you have messed with the wrong wolf and if you don’t start talking soon, I won’t be responsible for the consequence.”

“We didn’t do anything to him,” Lori protests. “We are hunters, but not _that_ kind of hunters you were implying earlier.”

“So you know the other kind exists?” Scott crosses his arms and stares her down.

“Why do you think I am living in a city trying to blend in with Amy instead of finding her a pack or an alpha?” she retorts hotly.

“How would I know why you are doing whatever you are doing?” Scott shouts back. “For all I know, you may be planning all along to hand Derek over to the likes of Calaveras on a silver platter so that they leave you and your cousin alone because that will be exactly what Derek needs, another hunter using him against his wishes. I don’t even know what is wrong with you people. Why can’t you just leave him alone? Hasn’t he been through enough?”

“Derek Hale?” Suddenly Lori’s eyes widen in recognition and she steals a quick glance at Derek who is standing rigidly, his face completely blank for a change.

She smacks her forehead with her palm. “Oh my God. Derek Hale from Beacon Hills. Why didn’t I realize earlier?”

“Realize what?” Derek asks woodenly.

“That your family was murdered by werewolf hunters and only a sixteen-year-old kid sur–” Lori clamps over her own mouth. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt that out like that.”

“No, you didn’t think. Period,” Scott advances on her. “You didn’t think twice before kidnapping him. You have no idea how much he has suffered at the hands of the likes of you and still, impossibly enough, his first instinct is to help people.”

“I know,” Lori’s shoulders sag.

Scott is startled into silence because he hasn’t thought she would actually agree with him so easily.

“He is…he just wanted to help. Even when he didn’t know us he wanted to help and we…”

“Lori!”

The urgent cry draws their attention and Scott watches with dawning horror Derek crumpling on the ground with Amy trying to support his much larger frame with her scrawny arms.

“Derek,” Scott is instantly by his side and he arrests Derek’s fall and picks him up and deposits him on the bed. Derek is deathly pale and he is holding his head with both hands, writhing in agony.

“Lor…” he whimpers.

“Oh my God, Jack…” she rushes forward and hovers awkwardly over him, unsure.

“Stop calling him Jack,” Scott snaps at her. “His name is Derek,” he says more quietly resting a hand on Derek's forehead, clammy with sweat, and trying to draw some pain. He sways where he stands from the brutal force of it. God, how much suffering can a man go through before he breaks completely! How much physical and emotional pain can be heaped upon one person by fate before he goes raving mad.

“Amy, tell Kevin to get his ass back right now,” Lori instructs urgently, ignoring Scott’s presence for the time being. “We need to take him to the hospital again.”

“On it,” Amy says and disappears into the next room.

“Again?”

“He suffers from a debilitating headache and nausea from time to time,” Lori says, rubbing Derek’s arm soothingly. “He is under treatment for his condition.”

“Amnesia?” Scott asks. “You want to say you are not responsible for that?”

“No,” Lori’s head jerks up and he meets Scott’s eyes squarely. “How can you even think like that?”

“Well, because you won’t be the first hunter to try to do that to him,” Scott shakes his head.

“No, I will never…” she pauses and takes a deep breath. “There is a misunderstanding. I shouldn’t have taken him away from Beacon Hills, but I truly didn’t know people would be looking for him.”

“Kevin is coming up in five minutes,” Amy returns, brandishing her cellphone.

“Good,” Lori says. Then she looks up at Scott. “Can you help me take him downstairs?”

“You realize it’s my friend you are talking about. A person I would take a wolfsbane bullet for?” Scott quirks an eyebrow at her.

“Oh,” Lori looks away again. “I…didn’t know.”

“You can apologise later and not to me,” Scott sighs and looks down at Derek who seems to be completely out of it. “Right now, he needs all the help we can provide.”

Lori nods sincerely and it feels like they have at last reached some common ground. Not that they are going to tie friendship bands to each others’ wrists soon, but at least there is a silent understanding. Scott is grateful that he doesn't need to fight with the Turners right now because he is not sure he can, given the fact Derek is lying on the bed, pale and motionless, and Scott's heart is twisting in agony imagining everything that can go wrong with him. Derek is human and so very fragile right now.

Later, when Lori and he are sitting in the hospital lounge after Derek is wheeled off for a CT scan, Scott decides to be hyper-alert anyway though he is not the one to distrust people from the beginning. That is Stiles’ job and Derek’s. Scott has never seen two people who are at loggerheads most of the time even though they basically think alike. He huffs a small laugh at the memory of Derek and Stiles bickering.

"...post-traumatic amnesia..."

"...abnormal neural activity..."

"...unusually high, but reduced blood flow to the occipital lobe..."

They are talking about Derek!

“Are you eavesdropping on the doctors?” Lori, who is sitting across her, asks.

“Yes,” Scott glares at him. “If you shut your mouth and let me listen.”

“Is he OK?” she asks after a few minutes. “Can you hear anything?”

“Why do you care so much?” Scott asks not quite unkindly.

Lori pauses before answering. “Because he...he nearly died trying to save Amy's life.”

Scott stares at her incredulously. "What?" When Lori is about to open her mouth he holds up a hand, cutting her off. "No, you need to tell Derek everything first. He deserves to know the truth," he repeats because this bears repeating.

Lori looks like she is going to argue back, but then she slumps down into the chair. "You are right," she concedes.

Scott gives her a side-eye but otherwise, doesn't comment on her one eighty degrees change in attitude. He will deal with her later. Right now, Derek is everything he can think about.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Reference to BDSM.

Scott gets a text message from Lori which simply reads:

_It’s time_

Scott, who has been lounging on the bed, hurriedly puts on a pair of jeans and a fresh shirt, and types back:

_I am on my way_

He wants to be there for Derek when the truth is revealed. Scott doesn’t dare to imagine it will go all smooth-sailing. It’s been only two days since Derek has been released from the hospital after being under observation for seventy-two hours. Thankfully, the CT scan didn’t reveal any internal haemorrhage, but it left the doctors baffled even more about the causes of the attacks of migraine. 

“Why is he here?” Amy asks sourly to nobody in particular as Lori ushers Scott inside. She has never quite got over her initial hostility of Scott. Scott can understand the instinct. This is her pack and her wolf perceives Scott as a threat.

He ignores her mostly. In another time, in another universe, he would have tried his best to soothe the girl, assuring her he means no harm. He would probably offer help or a place in his pack, but Scott is so tired of playing the good Samaritan. He doesn’t feel like an alpha, let alone a true alpha anymore. The few months in San Francisco have taken their toll when Scott has been busy hiding from all his problems. He wonders if he has been lingering here refusing to go back to Beacon Hills because he felt Derek nearby, subconsciously. Even though Derek is no pack, he is definitely something. He is practically family, Scott’s stupid, unrequited crush notwithstanding.

“OK, so Kevin is not here, though he knows pretty much everything,” Lori starts after all four of them have taken their seats. Derek chooses to sit with Scott on the couch making Scott preen inwardly. His face is blank and so Scott has no idea what he is thinking. He hasn’t spoken a word since Scott has arrived at their plush apartment, hasn’t acknowledged Scott’s presence even, other than sitting near him.

“He is not trained as a hunter because he cannot stand blood and gore. He is scared of syringes…” Lori laughs nervously; then clears her throat when nobody cracks a smile.

“It starts around a year back when my uncle and aunt, Lori’s parents, started hunting for an alpha gone rogue near Cortez…

…

Scott doesn’t know why he agrees to meet Derek at a bar of all places. Or he knows only too well. Because he cannot deny Derek anything, especially when he sounds like that – timid and unsure - as if he cannot believe somebody like Scott can have anything to do with somebody like him. Derek calls him on the same evening the grand revelation takes place. He asks if he can see Scott again, like a normal person, when both of them are relatively stable, physically and emotionally.

At least the bar is a neutral ground and here Scott will be forced to keep a tight rein on his emotions. He wants Derek in his apartment, all by himself, and he wants it to such an unhealthy degree that frightens him. Derek is taking his new reality stoically, but Scott noticed how Derek was staring off into the space that day, after Lori had said her piece, like he was physically present, but mentally someplace far, far away. Scott wants to shackle him bodily to here and now. He is afraid if he lets Derek into his apartment, he will lock him in and throw away the key.

He is afraid he will never be able to let Derek go.

That is not fair because Derek is not _his_ to keep. Even if Lori made a blunder, she evidently cares for Derek a lot and Derek, in turn, forgives her promptly. Even Scott cannot help but realize the Turners were not the bad guys here.

It turns out Amy’s parents were hunting a particularly vicious alpha who went on a mindless, killing spree. They followed its bloody trail to Farmington where they confronted it and was finally successful in killing it, but not before it kidnapped and bit their daughter Amy who used to stay there with her grandmom when her parents went on the hunting trips. The alpha probably overheard their conversation about their daughter and wanted leverage on them.

The news leaked out, somehow, even though they tried to cover it to the best of their ability and the Calaveras turned up to their door, demanding them to put down their daughter. They barely escaped from Arizona, but Amy was hit with a special bullet that uses mistletoe instead of wolfsbane and she has been sick since then.

They had taken her to a well-known emissary at Phoenix, but she told them their only hope was the lobisomem, the werewolf who can actually turn into a huge black wolf. When they expressed their despair over the fact that they didn’t have the time to visit South America in search of the legendary werewolf because Amy’s condition was rapidly deteriorating, the emissary assured them that the lobisomem was originally from Beacon Hills and that he knew from a reliable source that he had returned home.

They had travelled to Beacon Hills then. Lori who lived in San Francisco was supposed to meet them there. But the Calaveras found them first and they met with an accident in the preserve while trying to escape. They managed to hide Amy in an old hunter’s cabin they found in the forest, but they were injured and bleeding. They drew the Calaveras away from Amy but they couldn’t evade the hunters themselves for long.

Lori found their dead-bodies in the forest. They were tortured, beaten to a pulp, probably for information on their daughter. She found the hunter’s cabin where Amy was passed out on the floor. She was in the process of burying the bodies of her uncle and aunt near the cabin, not wanting to draw attention when Derek found them.

“We knew he was different,” Lori said. “He moved differently, held himself differently and he had this powerful aura about him. I somehow knew he was the lobisomem we were looking for.”

“Did he offer to help him right away?”

“Well, no,” Lori rolled her eyes. “He was pretty hostile at first. I got the impression he didn’t like us, hunters, much and he wasn’t happy with the fact that we had brought the Calaveras back to Beacon Hills. But I took him to Amy. One look at her and he gave us an address and told us to meet him there.”

“What happened after that?” Derek asked when Lori paused.

She was wearing a stoic mask all along while telling the story, but the veneer seemed to crack towards the end.

“I thought I would lose Amy too,” she whispered, not able to lift her eyes from the floor. “I had lost my father and my brother to a hunt and now my uncle and aunt, but the thought of losing Amy too was just so painful.”

Derek had nodded and drawn Amy closer who had come to sit beside him halfway through the story. She didn’t even know Derek was the werewolf who had saved her life. She was unconscious when Lori brought her to Derek’s loft.

“I am sorry you had to go through all that,” Derek told Lori sincerely.

Lori glanced at him and looked away again. “I didn’t know what it would do to you. I would have never asked you to…”

“Yes, you would have,” Derek chuckled. “You would probably have pressed a gun against my skull and ordered me to save her.”

Lori didn’t refute it.

“But you didn’t. You asked me instead.” Derek said. Then, he peered at her curiously. “You did, right?”

“Of course I asked. I pleaded with you to save her.” Lori’s eyes seemed to be burning from unshed tears. “You helped us willingly, I swear.”

Derek still looked somewhat uncertain, but Scott put his mind at ease. “Derek would do that,” he said. “He wouldn’t pass an opportunity to save an innocent life and that is why he didn’t contact m-us. He knew we would either try to dissuade him or take his place.” Scott shook his head with a rueful smile and looked at Derek. “You decided a long time back that your life is more expendable than ours. Nothing we could say or do would make you believe otherwise.”

“Why would you think like that?” Lori frowned at Derek. “You are a good guy, Derek. In a way, I am thankful Scott found you and I could tell you to your face how grateful I am to you.”

Derek blushed at the praise. “Surely, it was not that big a deal…”

“Derek,” Lori said flatly, “you pulled her sickness in, giving up your wolf spark to cure her. You vomited blood and then started bleeding from your nose and your eyes and your ears and still refused to let go of her hand until the poison was gone completely from her bloodstream.”

“Oh my God,” Amy shivered and burrowed closer into Derek. “I am so sorry.”

“What? No. It was not your fault.” Derek hugged her tight. “I would do that again.”

Scott could feel his chest puffing out in pride. People tell him all the time how proud they are of him or his impeccable ethics or his leadership skills or his kindness, but he just wishes people see how Derek has all these, only in a less approachable and more intimidating package. He never thought it was possible to be more enamoured with Derek, but it seemed he was wrong.

“You saved my little girl, Derek,” Lori said sternly, and if her voice wobbled, nobody commented on it. “Take some goddamn credit for it.”

“Who wouldn’t want to save a little girl if they have the power to do it?” Derek argued back.

“You turned into a human, Derek,” Lori retorted. “You fell into a fucking coma. It was not a car accident, but you sacrificed your wolf for us. I was so scared you would die and I didn’t even dare to take you to the damn hospital knowing the Calaveras were still nosing around Beacon Hills.”

“And I guess I never told you my name,” Derek concluded.

“You said all I had to remember was that you were a Hale,” Lori said. “I didn’t make the connection back then.”

“That my family was killed by hunters,” Derek nodded to himself.

And that was pretty much the only thing Scott revealed to Derek, dreading the day Derek learns about Paige or Laura or God forbid – Kate.

“Scott McCall, as I live and breathe,” the blonde girl bounces up to Scott startling him out of his reverie. Before Scott can react, she is flinging herself at him. Scott has no other option but to catch her, even though he would rather vanish into thin air.

“’Tis good to see you too Rosie,” he smiles, putting her down, wrinkling his nose at the smell of alcohol on her breath. “Though I didn’t imagine you would be so excited to see me again.”

“What can I say,” she slaps his arm playfully. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that jazz.”

“Deep,” Scott says, trying to squirm away as she still hovers in his personal space.

Derek clears his throat and Scott’s eyes snap up to see Derek staring at them or more specifically to Rosie’s hand which is still, for some reason, grabbing a fistful of Scott’s shirt.

“Derek,” Scott waves him over a bit more enthusiastically than the occasion calls for and subtly steps to his side to put some distance with the girl. The said girl proves to be pretty persistent as she slides right up to him again. For someone decidedly tipsy she is amazingly smooth.

Derek walks over to them, looking confused and a little bit hurt.

“I see that you got company,” he comments mildly.

“What, no!” Scott exclaims and looks down at Rosie who is pretty much plastered to his front and is sipping her drink contentedly.

He sighs. “Derek, this is Rosie. Rosie, Derek.”

“Hi, Drrrrrek.” She leans towards Derek who takes a cautionary step back. Scott doesn’t blame him.

“Hi,” Derek is caught midway between a wave and a shake as Rosie starts waving and then abruptly thrusts her hand under his nose.

"So, how do you know Scott?" he asks politely. It's only because Scott knows Derek too well that he notices how Derek's jaw is clenched a little too tightly. 

“Scott and I are an item,” she slurs. “We have an…” she looks left and right and beckons Derek closer. He leans forward reluctantly. “…arrangement,” she stage-whispers, nodding to herself.

“We are not an _item_ , Rosie,” Scott pinches the bridge of his nose. “We never dated, remember.”

“But he doesn’t deny our _arrangement_ , you see,” she points out gleefully, nearly sloshing both Scott and Derek with her drink. “He is such a gentleman that he insisted on a contract and shit just like fifty shades,” she giggles. “A written down kink negotiation for fu–”

Scott clamps a hand over her mouth. “You are drunk. Are you here with friends?”

Suddenly, as if summoned by Scott, a girl with long, purple hair appears behind Rosie. “There you are,” she says exasperatedly. “Let’s go, I have a morning shift tomorrow.”

“But Scotty…”

“Oh, just give him your number or better still, invite him to your underground club,” the girl grabs Rosie and starts tugging her away from them.

“Scott has been to the club. I met him in the club,” Rosie mumbles while being dragged away reluctantly. Then, she turns round and winks at Scott miming a phone with her free hand.

“Call me anytime,” she mouths.

Derek and Scott stare after her until the two girls disappear into the crowd. Then, they turn to face each other and, well, it’s awkward.

“Sorry for that,” Scott apologizes. “She kind of ambushed me.”

“What was she talking about?” Derek asks, curiously. “Underground club and arrangements…she made it sound like you worked for the mafia or something.”

Scott splutters and tries to turn it into a cough.

“Well?” Derek sits on the bar stool next to him.

“Itsabdsmclubthatiusedtogoto,” Scott mumbles into his drink, utterly mortified.

“Huh?”

“It’s a BDSM club,” Scott hopes his entire face is not on fire. “It’s kind of a…it’s really not as bad as it sounds…it's a place where consensual adults…”

“Scott, I know what a BDSM club is,” Derek looks amused. “I can remember the life skills I have acquired or impersonal facts even if I don't remember my past.”

“Oh,” Scott bites his lip. Then, for some reason, he feels like explaining himself. “I didn’t want to get into a serious relationship and experimented around. It helped me cope.”

 _Helped me forget_ – he adds silently.

“Scott, you don’t need to justify yourself,” Derek says. Then he fumbles with his shirt sleeves. “It doesn’t change my opinion of you.”

“It doesn’t?” Scott asks, wide-eyed. He has been subjected to a few judgmental comments from his colleagues after he made the mistake of visiting the club with one of the receptionists, who complained to him ad nauseam about her boring sex-life and begged Scott to take her there when Scott had reluctantly told her about it. She didn't have the discretion to keep her mouth shut and it was after that he had decided to abstain from sex or any kind of relationship altogether. At least until he sorted out what was it that he wanted.

“Scott, nothing can change my opinion of you, especially not what you choose to do with your private life,” Derek says seriously. Then he adds in a hushed undertone, “Maybe I find it sexy even.”

Scott splutters for the second time. The bartender throws them a dirty look.

“Dude!” Scott complains.

Derek smiles one of his private, little smile, half fond and half amused. “It’s nice to see _you_ flustered for a change as opposed to me making a fool of myself all the time.”

“You are not that bad,” Scott defends him and Derek just raises an eyebrow. He looks like himself so much when he does that especially as he is wearing an olive, long-sleeve t-shirt that is tighter than what this Derek usually wears and a pair of dark, well-fitted slacks that emphasize his long legs beautifully. Scott is half sure it’s either Amy or Lori who has picked up the wardrobe for him because this Derek dresses in baggy clothes (a pity, if you ask Scott) and his sense of style resembles that of Stiles – hoodies and plaids and canvas shoes, and more plaids.

Scott clears his throat, realizing he has been staring at the man for the last few minutes.

“Sorry…um…do you want a drink?”

“I will have what you are having.”

“I am having a cosmo,” Scott points out.

“Then I’ll have one.”

“Dude, alcohol doesn’t have any effect me. I am having it because it tastes good,” Scott laughs. “You can have a beer or anything you like. One perk of turning into a human is that you actually get to enjoy your drink.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” Derek wonders aloud. “Lori has filled me with the basics but she is not an authority on werewolves.”

“It’s a good thing that they are the _good_ hunters,” Scott muses. “The ones with a conscience.”

"I knew the other kind exists," Derek shudders. "Lori didn't tell us a lot about how Amy's parents died, but I somehow knew they were killed by other hunters. The ones Lori is always on the look-out for."

"How is it?" Scott asks curiously. "Living with the hunters."

“It's pretty normal actually because Kevin is no hunter and Amy had been kept out of it by her parents, even though she knew what their real job was. And I personally have never been to a ‘hunt,’” Derek air-quotes, making a face. 

“ _That_ would have been weird,” Scott frowns. “It’s one thing for you not to have any clue of being a werewolf yourself, even though you have lost your power once again…” Scott trails off, realizing his mistake immediately.

“Once again?” Derek raises a brow. “Did it happen before?”

“There was a hunter who was after you. She took your power and rendered you human somehow. But it wore off eventually,” Scott speaks quickly, praying Derek doesn’t ask for more details.

“Do you think this will go away too?” Derek asks hopefully. “I will be able to remember everything?”

“I really hope you do,” Scott says sincerely. “You have friends at Beacon Hills. There are people who miss you.” Scott nearly bites off his tongue to stop himself before he says _I miss you too_.

Derek looks into his ridiculous, pink drink. “I want to go there. I want to know more about my past.”

Fuck!

“But won’t you miss Lori and Amy? I think you are really good with Amy. She needs you,” Scott rambles on somewhat desperately.

“But Beacon Hills is my home, isn’t it?” Derek says, looking up at Scott.

“Yes, of course,” Scott replies, helpless against the silent plea in Derek’s eyes. “You have a home there. You built it with your own hands.”

“Really?” Derek looks excited.

“We are pretty strong as werewolves,” Scott smiles. “And we have a lot of excess energy to burn.”

“You are telling me?” Derek rolls his eyes. “Try babysitting a twelve-year-old werewolf with the stamina of an energizer bunny and the strength of two human male put together.”

Scott laughs at the put-upon look on Derek’s face. Then, he sobers up.

“You should visit Beacon Hills,” he says truthfully. “I don’t know when I will have the courage to go back though.”

“What do you mean?” Derek frowns. “It's your home too, isn’t it?”

Scott nods miserably. How can he tell Derek that he cannot go back as yet because Beacon Hills will remind him of the Derek Hale whom they have lost, probably permanently? Also, what if his past demons come back to haunt him there. Derek will not be there to hold him through the panic attacks. He doesn’t know if he is strong enough to do it without _his_ Derek. He knows they are one and the same, but he doesn’t want to burden this Derek with his own problems about which Derek knows nothing about and if Scott has his way, it will stay like that.

“I don’t know, man,” Scott gulps down the sweet liquid and wonders why he is drinking and to what end? “I don’t know if I still got my job. I may have to move back with my mom because I am broke. Maybe going back is not a good idea anymore.”

His mom and Stiles were pestering him every day to come back. He told them he had found Derek, but he didn’t tell them anything about his condition. This is going to be a shock to everybody and he wants to kind of put it off until he can’t. It’s more like Stiles’ philosophy rather than his own. Where did the Scott MaCall go, the righteous man who would have known what would be the right thing to do and not afraid to do it? Why was he so uncertain, not knowing the right from wrong anymore?

Suddenly he starts as he feels a hand covering his. He looks up to see Derek looking at him anxiously.

“It’s OK,” Derek says. “You don’t have to worry about me anymore. You can go back home now. I promise everything will be fine once you go back.”

“You were never this much optimistic, you know that?” Scott can’t help blurting out.

Derek’s eyes widen for a fraction. “Well, I dunno. Maybe because you found me even though Lori didn’t even know my first name. You had no idea who took me and Lori had no idea you existed.”

He grins at Scott, a blinding, happy thing. “You found me, Scott. What are the odds, huh?”

“What indeed?” Scott is powerless not to smile back.

“That’s why I want to go back. To Beacon Hills,” Derek bites his lip. “And I wanted your advice.”

“Oh,” Scott deflates a bit. So, that’s why Derek wanted to meet him, to talk to him without Amy or Lori eavesdropping on them. But he really has no room to complain. Derek literally knows a total of five people in the whole wide world and one of them is his doctor.

Oh shit! That reminds Scott how he has forgotten to tell him about Cora. Damn, he doesn't want to be the one to open that can of worms.

“Also, I wanted to ask if…um…” Scott looks at Derek carefully who has gone back to staring into his drink. Scott notices he hasn’t taken a single sip yet. But he holds onto the drink, otherwise, he seems unsure what to do with his hands.

Scott nudges him with a knee. “Tell me, Derek. You can ask me anything.”

Derek looks up quickly but looks away again. His ears are noticeably pink again. Scott wants to bite them and suckle on them. For an hour or two.

“Were we…ah…close?”

“You once told me we were brothers,” Scott smiles at Derek’s uncertainty.

“Oh,” Derek sounds a tad disappointed. Scott thought Derek really liked him and it should have cheered him up.

“What’s the matter, Derek?” Scott asks, concerned, as Derek’s scent turns dejected.

Derek shakes his head, “It’s not…never mind.”

“Derek?” Scott reaches out and feeling momentarily bold he hooks two fingers under Derek’s chin, making him look up from the floor. “What’s the matter?” he repeats, forcing Derek to meet his eyes.

“I thought I would ask you out, like a d-date,” Derek stammers out. “I know I am human and a brain-damaged one at that…but I thought maybe we used to…because I-I feel so drawn to you.”

 Scott feels goosebumps rising all over his skin at the confession. It is one thing to know Derek is attracted to him which is not news to him because he has a werewolf nose, but another thing to have Derek coming out of his shell and actually ask him out.

“I would love to go on a date with you,” Scott breathes out, gripping Derek’s hand without thinking.

He knows he is being impossibly selfish and irresponsible. One part of his mind is screaming at him how Derek actually doesn’t see him this way. How this Derek is just a gentle and vulnerable soul to whom Scott is the only person he has gotten close to other than his family. He is probably touch-starved to the extreme and Scott must seem like a knight in shining armour to him, helping him learn about his real identity. He must still be hurting from Lori lying to him for such a long time, even though she had a good reason to do it.

But Derek sits there with his eyes lighting up in cautious hope, looking like an angel. And his hand between Scott’s warmer palms is clammy with nerves. And there is that blush that drives Scott mad. He wants to chase after that with his fingers and his tongue. Will Derek blush harder then? Will he still be so self-conscious or will he turn the table on Scott and realise somehow that he is one of the sexiest persons to ever have walked the earth and he has literally nothing to be self-conscious about? Will he tremble under Scott’s hands and give up control, the way Scott imagines him to do?  

All these thoughts swim in Scott’s possibly over-heated brain and the devil sitting on his shoulder wins out.

“Good,” Derek positively beams, eyes crinkling in the corners and Scott pulls back his hand and sits on them so that he doesn’t just grab Derek’s face and kisses him silly. “I would like to take you on a date then. But there is one condition.”

“What?” Scott asks curiously.

Derek’s scent is giving nothing away other than a mellow pleasure. But he is smiling a bit like he used to smile before. A little bit naughty and a little bit smug.

Scott does not swoon. He most emphatically does not. He is the true alpha damnit.

OK, so he swoons a bit. Sue him.

“I would love to take you on a date,” Derek grins. “At Beacon Hills.”

Well, shit!


	11. Chapter 11

Scott can smell the confusion and uncertainty pouring off Derek as he takes in the little cabin. The way he is standing in the middle of his own home, looking completely clueless, hitching his backpack higher in his shoulder nervously, trying hard not to betray his inner turmoil, screams at Scott’s protective instinct for Derek. And they thought it would be a good setting for their date, a romantic gateway for the two of them in Derek’s isolated cabin.

_[“We can share the bed.”_

_“Um…”_

_“Not like that!”_

_“Uh huh (audible gulp).”_

_“It’s big enough for both of us.”_

_“OK?”_

_“Don’t worry, we will take it slow.”_

_“OK.”_

_“I hope we will get there eventually. But I thought maybe we could get to know each other better or you to know me better because I already kind of know you, so…”_

_“Scott, it’s fine. I have no problem with going slow.”_

_“You don’t?”_

_“Did you just sound disappointed?”_

_“…no?”]_

Scott had neglected to take into account how Derek would react to see his home which doesn’t feel like home. He should have eased Derek into Beacon Hills. He should have taken Derek to his old home, to mom. She has a gift to put people at ease. She should have been the first person Derek should have met, not Stiles or Malia, both of whom are good guys, but not quite what you would call the most tactful people around.

Also, during the hour-long drive from the airport, Derek has been keen on grilling Stiles and Malia about his past. They were only too happy to oblige. Scott winced repeatedly at some of the casual barbs Stiles threw at Derek which left him blinking and unsure. The old Derek would match Stiles snark for snark and would demolish Stiles at his own game. This was not the old Derek though.

Scott could only watch helplessly the inevitable train-wreck as Stiles had dragged Derek to the front passenger seat of his jeep, insisting how it had always been his designated place. _Remember the time you nearly bled to death on these seats after your psycho-ex shot you_ (wince) or _remember how you bashed my head against the steering wheel like the complete asshole that you were back then_ (another wince). Scott had tried to catch Stiles’ eyes in the rear-view mirror but Stiles, as always, was completely oblivious. Malia was as blunt as always ( _So, you have lost your memory? Good for you. Trust me, you don’t want to get them back.)_  

While Scott loved both of them to death, he had to repeatedly suppress the urge to make Stiles pull over and drag Derek out, probably hitchhiking their way home.

Scott sighs and proceeds to point out to everything to break the silence – the sofa (which Derek can see right there), the coffee machine (which Derek can see as well). He even tries to apologize for the lack of TV (what the hell is he doing?) and then he points to the staircase that leads to the bedroom (seriously, can somebody tell him what the fuck he is doing?).

He rambles on because he doesn’t want to see Derek like this, especially this clean-shaven and relatively skinnier version of Derek who looks so young and so lost. He reminds Scott too much of the Derek after Laura’s death – the one who looked so miserable and lonely all the time. Scott is ashamed how he and Stiles couldn’t see past the intimidating scowl, but he knows better now.

This Derek doesn’t know how to scowl. So, he doesn’t even have that mask to hide behind.

“Hey,” Scott calls out. “You OK there?”

Derek startles like he has forgotten Scott’s existence for a moment.

He nods, jerkily. “I’m fine. It’s just…” he throws his arms around, “it’s not what I imagined.”

“What did you imagine?” Scott asks carefully.

“I didn’t think I would be living all alone in the middle of the woods like some mountain man for one thing,” Derek tries to smile, but it seems too brittle.

Scott hugs himself, fists crushed against his ribs so that he doesn’t do anything stupid like squeezing the life out of Derek until his eyes don’t look so haunting anymore.

“I am sorry,” he says instead.

“What are you sorry for?” Derek asks, puzzled.

Scott doesn’t even know where to start. He has so many things to apologize for, but this Derek won’t even understand half of it. Now, he will probably never have the opportunity.

“Scott.”

Scott looks up to see Derek walking towards him. He reaches out shyly and brushes his fingers against Scott’s arm. Scott hasn’t even realized that his claws have popped out. Derek’s feather-light touch soothes something in him and his claws retract.

“It’s OK. Really,” Derek assures gently. “I was just caught off guard. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Scott looks down at his hands. “I never should have let you be taken in the first place. I should have been more vigilant. I was too preoccupied with moving back. You probably,” he pauses and huffs, looking up into Derek’s eyes, “you probably thought you would take care of it without telling me because you were always trying to shield me from everything.”

Derek smiles, a small and melancholy quirk of lips, and lowers his eyes to the floor, long eyelashes casting a long shadow over the cheekbones. “I can see why he would want to do that,” he says, nearly a whisper. “You are kind of precious. To both of us, I believe.”

Scott jerks, causing Derek to jerk back. The latter looks around himself, bewildered as if he hasn’t realized when he has come to stand so close to Scott. He nearly jumps back to put some distance between the two and Scott feels cold immediately.

Well, that won’t do at all. Scott pushes off the kitchen island advancing on him. Derek takes a couple of steps back, looking for all the world like a prey who can’t tear his eyes off the predator until his back hits the wall.

“You cannot drop something like that on me out of the blue,” Scott says far too calmly. “And whatever do you mean?”

Derek’s only response is a shakes his head. God, how can Derek be so different and still so infuriating? Scott doesn’t even know what to do with this bashful creature who has replaced Derek.

“You don’t know or you won’t tell me?” Scott asks, stalking right up to him.

Something in his stomach unfurls when Derek squirms under his intense gaze. Derek normally is the most stoic guy he has ever seen. He has hardly ever seen Derek flustered. Sad, yes, murderously angry, yes, out of control in rage, yes – but never like this. This makes Scott want to take him home and wrap him up in a blanket and feed him hot chocolate and never let him out of sight. Ever. This blushing and spluttering mess of a Derek – who is too shy to meet his eyes, too trusting for his own good, too gentle for the world they live in, too uncertain of his own worth – makes Scott want to go running into the forest until his lungs burn. This Derek makes his hands shake.

Scott places his hands on each side of Derek’s head, palms resting against the wall. Derek looks down to meet his eyes (for even hunched down he is still a few inches taller than Scott) and his eyes widen. Scott realizes his eyes are bleeding ruby red. Derek looks down immediately, flinching.

“Hey, I am not going to hurt you,” Scott whispers soothingly. Derek smells so good that his mouth waters from pure want. What is it about this man that is so thoroughly enticing, Scott will never know. He has known Derek for such a long time and has spent most of it trying to hate him and finally failing to do it. How can Derek evoke these feelings in him that he thought were dead and gone with Allison? But wait, he never wanted to take Allison apart and put her together again and hold against his chest like this. Everything with Allison was steeped with so much sweetness and innocence that Scott gets teary-eyed whenever he thinks about it. Derek is another story altogether. Feelings that Derek evoke are like a thunderstorm that takes over all his senses; a fever that runs so high that leaves his skin burning and mouth dry.

Derek _is_ a fever.

“I know,” Derek mumbles finally, averting his eyes when Scott tries to catch his gaze.

“So, why won’t you look at me?” Scott asks gently.

Derek bites his lip, debating.

“I am scared,” he finally settles on.

“Of what ba–Derek?” The term of endearment that nearly escapes his lips shocks both of them enough that makes Derek stand straighter and finally meeting his eyes. Scott can’t help leaning closer, drawn by the pleasant warmth of Derek’s skin, and his overall Derekness that draws him in like a magnet.

“From what I have learnt so far I have never had it good in my life,” Derek says and the sadness is there again in his eyes. “I…I know you have left a lot out. To spare my feelings. But I do get the picture. And I know I was probably not the easiest person to get along with. I get this image of me…of this unfeeling jerk…”

Damn it! Scott knew letting Stiles meet Derek before giving Stiles some sort of heads up in person was a mistake. A simple phone call the previous night breaking the news of Derek’s memory loss was not enough. He should have told Stiles how Derek is different now. How he is like an open wound, timorous and easily hurt.

Scott is shaking his head before Derek can finish. “No, Derek, that’s not true.”

“I just know I don’t deserve you,” Derek blurts out. “I am too broken and I am _not_ good for you, but when you look at me like that, I want to…I want it so bad. I know I am practically a stranger and I shouldn’t even talk to you like this and I don’t know why you are not running for the hills yet and it’s so selfish of me to burden you with all these feelings. And it scares me so much how strongly I feel about you which I shouldn’t in the first pl–”

Scott breaches the last few inches with lightning speed and kisses Derek for that seems to be the most effective way to stop the nonsense he has been sprouting. Derek moans into his mouth and Scott is…he is losing control. He shoves his tongue into Derek’s hot mouth and groans as he feels Derek going boneless against him. He immediately removes his hands from the wall and wraps them around Derek, pinning him against the wall. Derek lets him take over and Scott is staggering mentally from the amount of trust Derek puts into him, somebody Derek has known only a couple of weeks.

But Scott has to say something before it goes further. Scott knows he cannot let Derek believe all those disparaging thoughts about himself. He needs to do it right freaking now. He pulls away gently from Derek, making him open his eyes.

“You are wrong…” he says, resting his forehead against Derek’s. “You are so wrong that I don’t even know where to start. But just know you are the most beautiful, the most perfect thing that I have seen for a long time. That I feel the same way about you. I need you like oxygen in my lungs.”

Derek begins to open his mouth. “And I know I am probably taking advantage of you initiating anything with you when you are this vulnerable, but you make me want to break every rule and cross every boundary and ignore every moral code that I held dear which people will say a bad thing, but I just know you can never be anything but good for me.”

Then he holds Derek’s face between his hands, looking into the grey-green (silver?) eyes (fucking heterochromia), staring back at him in awe. “You don’t get to say nonsense like that again. Do you understand?”

“Scott,” Derek’s voice breaks and he surges forward and captures Scott’s lips, initiating the kiss for the first time. It’s all teeth and tongue – hungry and desperate. “Scott…I…” the broken hitch in Derek’s breath does it for Scott and it’s like a dam breached.

Scott holds Derek away from him and looks at him. He is looking wild and still, he is the most devastatingly beautiful thing Scott has ever seen. And Scott is willing to go anywhere with him, he realizes with a start. There is no question anymore, only this absolute certainty that he is in love with this man.

“Do you still want to take it slow?” he asks, his body thrumming with a hunger he hasn’t felt since Allison. Probably not even then.

“I never wanted to take it slow,” Derek protests. “I thought you…”

Scott kisses him silent again. God, he loves to do that. And then when Derek is pressing back, he finishes the kiss abruptly.

“Tell me you want me,” Scott whines, nosing at his collarbone, desperate and urgent. “Please tell me, Derek.”

“I wanted you since the moment I saw you at the supermarket.” Derek states. “I needed you since I saw you staring at me with this look on your face like you cannot believe I exist.”

“I cannot believe that you exist,” Scott smiles, brushing his thumbs across Derek’s ridiculous cheekbones.

Derek blushes again and there goes Scott’s stupid heart. Damn the man who doesn’t know how to take a compliment without turning scarlet.

“Then have me,” Derek says and takes Scott’s hands and wraps it around his own wrist.

And then, “I am all yours.”

Scott thinks his heart may stop beating for a moment there. He closes his fingers around Derek’s wrist and tugs him forward. Derek goes with him willingly, across the room, up the stairs, until they are staring down at the massive double-bed in the middle, the only thing on which Derek has splurged quite a bit. No one expects a piece of furniture like this in a rustic log cabin. Derek gawks a bit at the cosy bed, the memory foam and the sea-green comforter draped across it.

“It’s even more comfortable than it looks,” Scott smirks at Derek.

Derek looks like he is fighting a grin. “How comfortable?”

Scott squeezes his hand. “Why don’t we check it out? For the scientific purpose, I mean.”

Real smooth, Scott, he cringes. He can almost hear Stiles howling with laughter in the background:

_Really, Scott? That’s what you came up with?_

But Derek openly laughs this time, the melancholic look that nearly never leaves him is momentarily gone.

“OK,” he says, still smiling. “But I want you to do something first.”

“Anything,” Scott smiles back.

Derek ducks his head, fidgets and picks at the invisible lint in the sleeves of his jacket. “I want you to undress me.”

Scott falls flat on his ass. Fortunately, there is a bed under him.

“If you want to?” Derek looks down at him from under his lashes, worried.

“No, no, dude, I want to,” Scott jumps up.

“Don’t call me ‘dude’” Derek heaves a put-upon sigh and Scott freezes in his tracks. “What?” he asks.

“Nothing” Scott shakes his head feeling impossibly fond and approaches Derek who after his sudden burst of confidence seems insecure again.

Scott reaches out to unbutton his pale blue shirt. They come undone slowly, revealing a sliver of skin at a time. Then he is sliding Derek’s shirt off his toned back. Derek wordlessly lifts his hands so that he can divest him of his undershirt next. Scott does so, taking note of how Derek’s heartbeat increases with every passing moment. It’s so eerily silent, like the forest around them has gone to sleep early even though it’s only afternoon.

“You OK?” Scott asks Derek, once again.

“Yes, Scott.” Derek rolls his eyes but he smiles this pleased smile of his that lets Scott know he is pleased Scott cares that much. It breaks Scott’s heart that even such a little thing can affect Derek so. Even when he doesn’t remember anything, he still doesn’t take easy affection for granted, as if he doesn’t deserve the common courtesy of his partner making sure has a clear consent to whatever it is they are about to do.

Scott takes in a sharp breath and remembers how everybody didn’t, bothered with getting consent, that is, in Derek’s life. He takes a long moment to stare at the triskelion on Derek’s back. He touches it gently, tracing the dark contours. Derek trembles under his touch, swaying slightly into him. Scott kisses the middle of the tattoo where the three whorls meet and then he climbs on the bed. He discards his own shirt and crooks a finger, beckoning Derek closer.

Derek comes willingly. He makes him lie on his back and climbs on top. Derek is watching him steadily.

“Hi,” he murmurs.

“Hi yourself,” Derek smiles.

Sweet, shy, gorgeous.

“Can I take off your pants now?” he asks. “Because I kind of have a fantasy involving your dick and my hands.”

Clearly, he is spending too much time around Stiles – Scott makes a mental note of it.

“How can I deny such a romantic proposition?” Derek laughs under his breath.

He smirks at Derek’s sass and proceeds to unwrap the rest of him like he is a gift. Derek lifts his hips up obediently at Scott’s silent demand and the next moment he is lying there, naked. His eyes fixed on Scott and his breathing loud and harsh in the quiet of the room. Scott’s breath is caught in his throat at his nearly ethereal beauty. Scott has always known Derek has a perfect body, but seeing it in all its glory is something else. Scott is not entirely sure he is equipped to handle this much hotness. And the weirdest thing is that Derek is completely oblivious to his own attractiveness. Derek has never been vain, but Scott knew the pre-amnesiac Derek was at least aware of his looks and he had no qualms to use it to his advantage in desperate situations. But this Derek can only blush and, well, now Scott knows how far the blush spreads as the pretty pink dusting lights up his pale skin beneath his collar bones, across his bare chest and Scott wants to hide this Derek away. Really hide him from the entire world for this is not…ugh, Scott cannot even deal with how much he wants this for his only to keep. He wants to keep Derek and not to let him go because nobody else should see this private smile on Derek’s lips and the beautiful flush on Derek’s skin. He never knew he was so possessive!

Scott licks his lips and lets his hands wander, amazed how this is all his to play with, for Derek closes his eyes at his touch and sighs, sinking deeper into the mattress.

“You…you like my hands on you, don’t you?” Scott ventures, pecking him lightly on the lips. “You like it when I make you blush,” he smiles down at Derek. “Do you want me to go on?”

“Please,” Derek moans.

Scott nuzzles his jaw and Derek tips his head back, baring his throat, giving him access to the long, white column of skin.

“Tell me, baby,” Scott whispers. “Tell me you are OK with me touching you. Because I want to touch you everywhere. I want to make you feel good.”

Derek nods frantically, eyes squeezed shut.

Scott nibbles on Derek’s throat, making him shiver and shiver. He bites down on the collarbone and then scrapes his teeth across the pink nubs of his nipples, now hardening up to stiff peaks.

“Oh my God,” Derek gasps aloud.

Scott smiles against his golden skin, lapping at his sensitive nipples and moves down, propping himself up on his elbows and knees.

“Scott.” The urgency in Derek’s voice is unmistakable and Scott can feel the urgency too. His own dick is straining against his jeans and if he doesn’t get a release in the next few seconds he will explode.

Still, he ignores his own dick and takes Derek’s in his mouth, without warning. Derek arches up the bed, but Scott pins him down with one hand splayed on his stomach, using a bit of his werewolf strength. Then, he swirls his tongue experimentally.

“F-fuck…” Derek cries out.

“Some other day,” Scott smirks and seals his lips around Derek’s beautiful, uncut dick.

He swallows it whole, burying his nose in Derek’s pubic hair, inhaling the pure Derek scent. He wants it. He wants it so much that he is going nearly out of his mind with want. He has never even been with a guy for God’s sake let alone deep-throating somebody. He doesn’t even know where this instinct is coming from. But he wants to do this to Derek so badly.

When he begins to move, Derek is fisting the bed-sheet with both hands and his head is thrown back, exposing his throat again. A possessive growl forms in Scott’s throat and he is sure if anyone comes between him and Derek right at this moment, he will tear them from limb to limb. He can hardly believe it, but this beautiful, magnificent creature that is open and pliant under his hands right now, the one who is baring his throat, unintentionally seducing him, this person lying naked and exposed on the bed – this is his and his alone. This moment of nearly unbearable bliss, this open trust, this beautiful blush – all these belong to him or he belongs to this enchanting person, utterly and wholeheartedly. Every moan of pleasure escaping Derek’s lips sends electricity down his spine, knowing he is the cause behind it. Every twitch and shiver makes him want to pet Derek, reassure him, hug him, caress him, kiss him, soothe him and make him feel special – because he is so fucking special and Scott will make sure Derek knows it.

He bobs his head, holding on to Derek’s hipbones, for Derek is not trying to jump out of bed anymore. But even though he tries every trick in the book to render Derek completely incoherent in pleasure, suddenly Derek grabs his hands stilling them. When Scott looks up at him, panting, not even able to utter a question, Derek sits up and draws him closer for a bruising kiss. Then he is reaching down to unbutton Scott’s jeans.

“Let me please…” Derek mumbles against his lips.

And how can Scott deny that voice? He lets Derek fumble with the zipper and take out Scott’s dick, now leaking pre-cum. Scott groans and drops his head on Derek’s shoulder. Derek’s hands are soft against his skin. He has no calluses (perks of being a born were) unlike Scott’s whose hands had already formed a few before he turned. If he closes his eyes, he can probably imagine it to be a woman’s hands, but it’s not. Because Derek doesn’t let him go but he keeps on raining kisses on him and nuzzles against his skin. Though Derek is clean-shaven, his cheeks are just sand-papery enough that makes Scott’s inside tremble. And his hand encircling his dick – Scott has no words for how it feels.

That’s how they do it, slow and languid, exchanging lazy kisses, coming at the same time on each other and then holding on to each other tightly, refusing to let go, both so needy and clingy that it should be disgusting, but it just makes Scott’s heart flutter and chest tighten in a good way.

Late into that night when Scott is lying on clean sheets – after taking a shower together in the small bathroom smiling goofily and shampooing each other off and eating dinner that consisted solely of hot pockets – with Derek tucked into the curve of his body, he keeps on thinking if he is going ahead of himself. He cannot help wondering what would happen if Derek remembers everything and is furious with Scott for taking advantage of his vulnerable state of mind.

Too many people have tried to manipulate Derek. Scott doesn’t want to be another person to do that to him. His eyes burn and his claws threaten to come out just at the thought of it. It’s the peacefully sleeping Derek in his arms that reminds him to try to get a hold on his inner freak-out. Derek doesn’t deserve to witness his emotional breakdown on top of everything he is going through.

His hold tightens on Derek and he burrows closer to Scott, even in sleep, sighing across his chest sleepily.

Scott bites down on his lips to stop himself from crying at the sweetness of it all. He doesn’t dare to think about the aftermath.

And he is sure there will be one.

**Author's Note:**

> Read my original fantasy novel on my website [here](https://www.theauthorkamalika.org/).


End file.
